Let's smelt some plants!

March 10, 2021 7:00 AM

The NYT covers phytomining - the process of retrieving metals from certain types of plant. Their sap can contain a higher concentration of nickel than regular ore, bringing the prospect of planting over abandoned mines, slowly cleaning the soil and extracting the remaining metals at the same time - phytoremediation. (hat-tip to Boing Boing)
posted by Stark (14 comments total)

The "nature is healing" memes are really going to take off if this catches on.
posted by fedward at 7:51 AM on March 10, 2021

This is fascinating, and I had no idea it was possible at the type of scale they're suggesting. I'm glad to have read this today.
posted by Wretch729 at 8:14 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

Must introduce Mel Chin's "Revival Field."
posted by homerica at 8:21 AM on March 10, 2021 [3 favorites]

Semi-related: turns out strip-mined land in the US is perfect for bringing back the American chestnut, which could lead to true reclamation over time: The Demise and Potential Revival of the American Chestnut
posted by ohkay at 8:45 AM on March 10, 2021 [18 favorites]

I've been following the bio-remediation research on Pteris vittata, commonly called Chinese Brake Fern. It is a hyperaccumulator of arsenic but needs to be controlled as it is also an invasive species in parts of the US.
posted by zenon at 9:16 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind wasn't making that shit up y'all.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:26 AM on March 10, 2021 [16 favorites]

While phytoremediation is the most obvious application of this technology, I can't help but wonder what predatory phytomining would look like at scale. I'm imagining a landscape stripped of all natural vegetation and saturated with Roundup, riddled with conical boreholes angled toward the sun and shaped with earthmovers to maximize surface area, the whole thing rendered an uncanny green by a carpet of weedkiller-resistant phytomining monoculture. If that sounds a bit extreme, tell me you don't see dollar signs in the eyes of mining executives when phrases like "higher concentration than regular ore" get thrown around.
posted by belarius at 9:37 AM on March 10, 2021 [8 favorites]

I've been reading about phytoremediation for a bit now and I've been hoping my old home town would sink some funds into it. I know they are aware of it, as this article from 2014 points out, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of pull to explore it wholeheartedly.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:39 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's exciting that phytoremediation works for removing arsenic in soil, too. (A note about sunflowers: "We concluded from present study that Arsenic predominantly deposited into the leaves of sunflower rather than the seeds," for anyone Fox-Muldering it up lo these many years.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:55 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

IIRC it's from bacterial action, not plants, but see also bog iron. Which was lumps of iron-rich crud. In bogs. Smelting, for the purposes of.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:55 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

In another life I was planning on going into marine bacteriology. Chemoautotrophs, some of which are capable of reducing metals out of their environment, were of particular interest to me. Many require anaerobic (oxygen-free) conditions in which to grow but a few can tolerate limited oxygen exposure (facultative anaerobes) and so seemed promising as a means of remediating wetland pollution. Don't know if anyone followed up on this.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 10:32 AM on March 10, 2021

Ashwagandha I'm trying to get a phytoremediation company going in New Zealand; the science, the botany, the safety aspects, law, landscape management - that's all quite straightforward and phyto is hardly innovative,

BUT landfilling of the entire polluted layer of a polluted site has become the-way-we-do-things in NZ. Insurance costs are astronomic. I have my first client, my fee for phyto for full-service design/legal/siteworks is probably ~$300k PLUS insurance of $90,000

Friends proposing similar work have been threatened by big players who don't want to lose their excavation and landfilling contracts (national law, has been corrupted on several levels as well, it's a mess) which run around NZ$400 to $700 per cubic metre (and the cut is often at least a metre depth) - whereas with phyto this comes down to something like the cost of a very expensive garden ~ $30 to $75 a square metre - as there's no excavation.

Iris Gambol Yes, there's a lot of misinformation of which plants take up what, and which plant parts, for reliable popular reading Phyto: Principles and Resources for Site Remediation and Landscape Design demolishes a lot of myths, especially around sunflowers.

Plants are clever things; I've just completed a scheme where I'm using plants to take up specific isotypes of nitrogen. Plants can also discriminate between different water isotopes e.g. Oxygen 16 or 18.
posted by unearthed at 10:37 AM on March 10, 2021 [17 favorites]

Whoa, do you have a problem with radioactive N? When do you need to discriminate N instead of tagging with it?
posted by clew at 10:46 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

hold on i have an idea for a new valheim plugin
posted by kaibutsu at 12:13 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]