Phytomining
Extracting metals from soil through hyperaccumulator plants
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Phytomining, sometimes called agromining,[1] is the concept of extracting heavy metals from the soil using plants.[2] Unlike phytoremediation, where extraction is proposed for cleaning up environmental pollutants, phytomining is for the purpose of gathering the metals for economic use.[3]
Phytomining exploits the existence of hyperaccumulator plants which naturally have proteins or compounds that bind with certain metal ions. Once the hyperaccumulation happens, the final metal, or bio-ore, needs to be refined from the plant matter.[4] Phytomining would, in principle, minimize environmental effects compared to conventional mining.[2] Phytomining could also remove low-grade heavy metals from mine waste.[4] A 2021 review concluded that the commercial viability of phytomining was "limited"[1] because it is a slow and inefficient process.
History
Phytomining was first proposed in 1983 by Rufus Chaney, a USDA agronomist.[5] He and Alan Baker, a University of Melbourne professor, first tested it in 1996.[5] They, as well as Jay Scott Angle and Yin-Ming Li, filed a patent on the process in 1995 which expired in 2015.[6]
Proposed commercialization
Several startups are investigating the process for mining surface-available heavy metals. In 2025, Genomines received 45 million dollars of Series A funding to commercialize nickel phytomining from mine tailings.[7] The French company Econick and the Albanian company MetalPlant both have nickel phytomining projects. As of mid-2024, MetalPlant had extracted less than a kilo of usable nickel, using Odontarrhena plants.[8]
