Abstract
Rare earth elements (REE) are indispensable to the clean energy and advanced electronics industries, yet conventional mining often entails substantial environmental and energy costs. Phytomining, which harnesses the ability of hyperaccumulator plants to concentrate REE from soil, offers a promising sustainable alternative. However, the downstream recovery of REE from plant biomass remains inefficient and resource-intensive. In this study, we introduce a rapid electrothermal calcination (REC) strategy for REE-enriched biomass, which enables fast thermal activation (e.g., 1000 °C for 20 s) and improves REE extractability through dilute acid leaching, with extraction efficiencies of up to ~97%. The REC process is versatile across various organic hyperaccumulator matrices, as demonstrated using Blechnum orientale and Dicranopteris linearis. Comparative life-cycle analyses reveal that REC reduces carbon emissions by over 70% relative to conventional furnace-based methods. These results establish REC as a sustainable and scalable platform for advancing circular REE recovery via phytomining.
Data availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information. Other relevant data are available from the corresponding author, B.D. (dengbing@tsinghua.edu.cn), upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We express our gratitude to the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for providing the Blechnum orientale. The funding of the research was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 92475112, B.D.; No. 51978375, J.L.), National Key Laboratory Special Fund Project of China Minmetals Corporation (Grant No. 2025GZGJ02, B.D.), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. F251042, B.D.), and the Central Leading Local Science and Technology Development Fund (YDZJSX2024D002, B.D.).
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B.D. and M.X. conceived the idea. M.X. conducted most of the experiments and characterization. T.W., E.F., and Z.H. assisted with the experiments. M.X. conducted the LCA and TEA with the help of T.W. Z.Y. conducted the numerical simulation. Q.M., W.L., and R.Q. provided hyperaccumulators and offered useful suggestions to the experimental design. M.X., B.D., and J.L. wrote the manuscript. This work was supervised by B.D. and J.L. All aspects of this work were overseen by B.D. All authors revised and commented on the final version of this article.
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Xu, M., Deng, B., Feng, E. et al. Sustainable rare earth extraction from phytomining by rapid electrothermal calcination. Commun Mater (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-026-01089-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-026-01089-x
