Searching ionophores for collecting rare earth elements and cleaning up environmental pollution

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25660085
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: UEKI Masashi 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 伊藤ナノ医工学研究室, 専任研究員 (90312264)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 微生物代謝産物 / セシウム / イオノフォア / 環境浄化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Ionophores are small organic molecules produced by microorganisms, and can bind to specific metal ions to form complexes. The structures of ionophores are inextricably linked with the diameter of metal ion, so the specificity of binding to metal ion is very high. Utilizing ionophores, we can effectively collect rare earth elements from various environmental sources. This project mainly focused on searching ionophores, especially specific to Cs, to clean up environmental pollution.
I have screened about 5000 extracts of microorganisms. Two microorganisms were seemed to produce the targeted molecules which might bind to Cs ion, and I tried to identify the active principles. However, the principles could not be determined because their productivities were unstable. Moreover, it was found that the principles purified roughly did not show any affinities to Cs ions.

Free Research Field

天然物化学