"Can we really extract platinum from waste using bacteria?"

Platinum group metals sit at the heart of the energy transition, enabling everything from catalysts and electronics to hydrogen and clean energy technologies. Yet their supply is highly concentrated, energy-intensive, and increasingly constrained.

In this episode of Raw Green, Francesco and Emma explore a radically different approach: using bacteria to extract and recycle platinum group metals from waste streams.

Together and based on the research of Dr. Chris Egan-Morriss and Patrick King, researchers from the University of Manchester, we unpack how metal-reducing bacteria can recover platinum from dilute industrial effluents and e-waste, why this matters for supply security, and what life-cycle assessment reveals about the real environmental impacts of biorecovery compared to mining and conventional recycling.

The conversation covers the promise — and the limits — of biological recovery, the role of e-waste as an underused resource, the challenges of scaling up bioprocesses, and what needs to change for these technologies to move from the lab into industrial reality.

Raw Green is produced and sponsored by OBE, a sustainability consultancy firm specialised in Life Cycle Assessment, research and green technologies. 

For more information: 

https://oneobe.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/on-behalf-of-earth/

https://www.youtube.com/@RAWGREEN_1

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