Grant: Alliance Grants

Rare earth metals (REs), which includes lanthanides (plus yttrium and scandium), are critical components in electronics, lasers, magnets, and other advanced technology. Although Canada is known to have large deposits of rare earth metals, nearly all of our REs are now imported, and Canada has only recently started to mine REs. Extracting and purifying REs selectively from ores, from waste electronics, and other sources is extremely important, yet difficult to realize owing to the chemical similarity of all of the REs. New chemistry-based approaches are required to more effectively extract REs from ores and to develop efficient options to advance a circular economy in Canada by extracting REs from electronics waste. One promising approach centers on deploying organic molecules as extraction systems to achieve the separation and recovery of lanthanides. Accordingly, this proposal describes the synthesis, investigations and computational studies of new synthetic molecules and biomolecules as ligands for efficient harvesting of lanthanides. At the core of this effort is the identification and development of ligands that maximize binding to a particular lanthanide. By optimizing the portion of the molecule that binds to the metal (i.e., the binding sites of the ligands) new molecules will be created that can extract REs with enhanced selectivity. This effort will be supported by computational modeling techniques that are poised to deliver new designs of well-defined structures that can impart selectivity through carefully crafted interactions between ligands and metals. Moreover, stimulus-responsive systems will be developed to allow the extraction and on-demand release of the REs. We will accomplish this ambitious objective by integrating existing expertise in the areas of supramolecular chemistry, materials chemistry, coordination chemistry, ML/computational chemistry, biochemistry, and photochemistry. This interdisciplinary approach will lead to significant new materials and methods for isolating rare earth metals, while simultaneously providing exceptional training to undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows.