Phytomining

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title: "Phytomining" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["bioremediation", "biotechnology", "ecological-restoration", "environmental-terminology", "phytoremediation-plants", "soil-contamination", "sustainable-technologies"] description: "Extracting metals from soil through hyperaccumulator plants" topic_path: "philosophy" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytomining" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Extracting metals from soil through hyperaccumulator plants ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Phytoextraction_diagram.svg" caption="phytoextraction]] by a [[hyperaccumulator]]; zinc and copper are moved from the soil to the leaves of the plant"] ::

Phytomining, sometimes called agromining, is the concept of extracting heavy metals from the soil using plants. Unlike phytoremediation, where extraction is proposed for cleaning up environmental pollutants, phytomining is for the purpose of gathering the metals for economic use.

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. A 2021 review concluded that the commercial viability of phytomining was "limited" because it is a slow and inefficient process.

History

Phytomining was first proposed in 1983 by Rufus Chaney, a USDA agronomist. He and Alan Baker, a University of Melbourne professor, first tested it in 1996. They, as well as Jay Scott Angle and Yin-Ming Li, filed a patent on the process in 1995 which expired in 2015.

Advantages

Phytomining would, in principle, cause minimal environmental effects compared to mining. Phytomining could also remove low-grade heavy metals from mine waste.

Commercialization

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Alyssum_obovatum_38030702.jpg" caption="''[[Odontarrhena]]'' plants are nickel [[hyperaccumulator]]s"] ::

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. 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.

References

References

1. (2022-12-01). "A mini-review of phytomining". International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology.
2. (1998-09-01). "Phytomining". Trends in Plant Science.
3. Linacre, J. Scott Angle and Nicholas A.. (2005). "Ecological Risks of Novel Environmental Crop Technologies Using Phytoremediation as an Example". Intl Food Policy Res Inst.
4. (2021-02-11). "Leaders of the energy transition are calling for a sustainable source of critical metals – is phytomining the answer?".
5. Morse, Ian. (2020-02-26). "Down on the Farm That Harvests Metal From Plants". The New York Times.
6. "Method for phytomining of nickel, cobalt and other metals from soil".
7. Peters, Adele. (2025-09-19). "This startup grows plants instead of digging mines to extract a critical mineral". Fast Company.
8. (4 July 2024). "Flower farm could supply nickel for electric vehicle batteries". [[New Scientist]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::