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The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements.

ABSTRACT: Potential risks of supply shortages for critical metals including rare-earth elements and yttrium (REY) have spurred great interest in commercial mining of deep-sea mineral resources. Deep-sea mud containing over 5,000?ppm total REY content was discovered in the western North Pacific Ocean near Minamitorishima Island, Japan, in 2013. This REY-rich mud has great potential as a rare-earth metal resource because of the enormous amount available and its advantageous mineralogical features. Here, we estimated the resource amount in REY-rich mud with Geographical Information System software and established a mineral processing procedure to greatly enhance its economic value. The resource amount was estimated to be 1.2?Mt of rare-earth oxide for the most promising area (105?km2?×?0-10?mbsf), which accounts for 62, 47, 32, and 56 years of annual global demand for Y, Eu, Tb, and Dy, respectively. Moreover, using a hydrocyclone separator enabled us to recover selectively biogenic calcium phosphate grains, which have high REY content (up to 22,000?ppm) and constitute the coarser domain in the grain-size distribution. The enormous resource amount and the effectiveness of the mineral processing are strong indicators that this new REY resource could be exploited in the near future.

SUBMITTER: Takaya Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5893572 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements.

Takaya Yutaro Y Yasukawa Kazutaka K Kawasaki Takehiro T Fujinaga Koichiro K Ohta Junichiro J Usui Yoichi Y Nakamura Kentaro K Kimura Jun-Ichi JI Chang Qing Q Hamada Morihisa M Dodbiba Gjergj G Nozaki Tatsuo T Iijima Koichi K Morisawa Tomohiro T Kuwahara Takuma T Ishida Yasuyuki Y Ichimura Takao T Kitazume Masaki M Fujita Toyohisa T Kato Yasuhiro Y

Scientific reports 20180410 1

Potential risks of supply shortages for critical metals including rare-earth elements and yttrium (REY) have spurred great interest in commercial mining of deep-sea mineral resources. Deep-sea mud containing over 5,000 ppm total REY content was discovered in the western North Pacific Ocean near Minamitorishima Island, Japan, in 2013. This REY-rich mud has great potential as a rare-earth metal resource because of the enormous amount available and its advantageous mineralogical features. Here, we ...[more]

PMID: 29636486

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Project description:Background: Rare Earth Elements (REEs) control methanol utilization in both methane- and methanol-utilizing microbes. It has been established that the addition of REEs leads to the transcriptional repression of MxaFI-MeDH [a two-subunit methanol dehydrogenase (MeDH), calcium-dependent] and the activation of XoxF-MeDH (a one-subunit MeDH, lanthanum-dependent). Both enzymes are pyrroquinoline quinone-dependent alcohol dehydrogenases and show significant homology; however, they display different kinetic properties and substrate specificities. This study investigates the impact of the MxaFI to XoxF switch on the behavior of metabolic networks at a global scale. Results: In this study we investigated the steady-state growth of Methylomicrobium alcaliphilum 20ZR in media containing calcium (Ca) or lanthanum (La, a REE element). We found that cells supplemented with La show a higher growth rate compared to Ca-cultures; however, the efficiency of carbon conversion, estimated as biomass yield, is higher in cells grown with Ca. Three complementary global-omics approaches-RNA-seq transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics-were applied to investigate the mechanisms of improved growth vs. carbon conversion. Cells grown with La showed the transcriptional activation of the xoxF gene, a homolog of the formaldehyde-activating enzyme (fae2), a putative transporter, genes for hemin-transport proteins, and nitrate reductase. In contrast, genes for mxaFI and associated cytochrome (mxaG) expression were downregulated. Proteomic profiling suggested additional adjustments of the metabolic network at the protein level, including carbon assimilation pathways, electron transport systems, and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Discord between gene expression and protein abundance changes points toward the possibility of post-transcriptional control of the related systems including key enzymes of the TCA cycle and a set of electron-transport carriers. Metabolomic data followed proteomics and showed the reduction of the ribulose-monophosphate (RuMP) pathway intermediates and the increase of the TCA cycle metabolites. Conclusion: Cells exposed to REEs display higher rates of growth but have lower carbon conversion efficiency compared to cells supplemented with Ca. The most plausible explanation for these physiological changes is an increased conversion of methanol into formate by XoxF-MeDH, which further stimulates methane oxidation but limits both the supply of reducing power and flux of formaldehyde into the RuMP pathway.

Dataset Information

The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements.

Publications

The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements.

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