Phytomining
Phytomining, sometimes called agromining, is the concept of extracting heavy metals from the soil using plants. Unlike phytoremediation, where extraction is proposed for cleaning up environmental pollutants, phytomining is for the purpose of gathering the metals for economic use.
Phytomining exploits the existence of hyperaccumulator plants which naturally have proteins or compounds that bind with certain metal ions. Once the hyperaccumulation happens, the final metal, or bio-ore, needs to be refined from the plant matter. A 2021 review concluded that the commercial viability of phytomining was "limited" because it is a slow and inefficient process.
History
Phytomining was first proposed in 1983 by Rufus Chaney, a United [States Department of Agriculture|USDA] agronomist. He and Alan Baker, a University of Melbourne professor, first tested it in 1996. They, as well as Jay Scott Angle and Yin-Ming Li, filed a patent on the process in 1995 which expired in 2015.
Advantages
Phytomining would, in principle, cause minimal environmental effects compared to mining. Phytomining could also remove low-grade heavy metals from mine waste.
Commercialization
Several startups are investigating the process for mining surface-available heavy metals. In 2025, Genomines received 45 million dollars of Series A funding to commercialize nickel phytomining from mine tailings. The French company Econick and the Albanian company MetalPlant both have nickel phytomining projects. As of mid-2024, MetalPlant had extracted less than a kilo of usable nickel, using Odontarrhena plants.