3 ms·

I’m wondering why rare earths end up in coal in the first place.

• mchannon 9y ago
  Coal (at least most of the time) comes from decaying plants. Before the plants decayed, they pulled up all manner of minerals from soil. Rare earths behave similarly to iron, so if a plant can uptake iron from its soil (it can) then so can it uptake rare earths. There are numerous instances of field reclamation from mercury contamination specifically by use of plants to leach the mercury from the soil, then harvest, burn, and safely dispose of the mercury concentrate. https://www.fastcompany.com/3033295/cleaning-up-polluting-mines-with-plants-plants-that-then-turn-into-precious-metals https://www.fastcompany.com/3033295/cleaning-up-polluting-mi... Same story as this except the latter occurs in a human lifetime, and we want the mercury out of the soil for fundamentally different reasons.
  • wrycoder 9y ago
    Very interesting, thanks!