New sensor detects rare earth element terbium
From www.futurity.org
2021-08-31 14:16:44
Gail McCormick-Penn State
Excerpt:
A new luminescent sensor can detect terbium, a valuable rare earth element, from complex environmental samples like acid mine waste.
The sensor takes advantage of a protein that very specifically binds to rare earth elements. It could help develop a domestic supply of these metals, which smart phones, electric car batteries, and energy efficient lighting require. A paper describing the sensor appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Terbium, one of the rarest of the rare earth elements, produces the green color in cell phone displays and also has a role in high-efficiency lighting and solid-state devices. However, there are a variety of chemical, environmental, and political challenges to obtaining terbium and other rare earth elements from the environment.
Developing new sources of these metals also requires robust detection methods, which poses another challenge. For example, the gold standard method of detecting rare earth elements in a sample—a type of mass spectrometry called ICP-MS—is expensive and not portable. Portable methods, however, aren’t as sensitive and do not perform well in complex environmental samples, where acidic conditions and other metals can interfere with detection.
