New plant species an added atracion
A new plant species called nickel hyperaccumulator has been discovered at Kinabalu Park that could well be another atracion for visitors to the majesic Mt Kinabalu.
KOTA KINABALU: A new plant species called nickel hyperaccumulator has been discovered at Kinabalu Park that could well be another attraction for visitors to the majestic Mt Kinabalu, which of late has attracted global attention after an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale rocked the mountain and claimed 18 lives.
Sabah Park Field assistant researcher Sukaibin Sumail told The Borneo Post at Kinabalu Park in Kundasang recently that they had found at least 24 species of such plant in Sabah, especially at the park.
“Nickel hyperaccumulator plant is unique as it contains nickel. The discovery of the plant will be very useful as it can be used to prevent environmental imbalance as well as for commercial purposes,” he said.
He said a book had been published on the plant species through the research works of Dr Anthony van der Ent of Queensland University of Australia and a local researcher Rimi Repin, who is also the assistant park director.
According to their findings, future generations of miners could harvest metals from this plant species, capitalising on the ability of some plants to isolate and accumulate metals in their shoots.
Van der Ent said nickel hyperaccumulator plant that could extract metals such as nickel or cobalt from the soil could be harvested for some significant returns.
“A mature nickel hyperaccumulator tree can contain up to five kg of nickel when grown in the right conditions,” van der Ent said in his book.
He said a process known as phytomining or agromining, would involve plantations growing on mine waste or ground with ore deposits not suitable for traditional mining.
“Phytomining trials have yielded up to 200kg of nickel per hectare a year, establishing a potential opportunity and income stream for future metal farmers in developing countries, especially with nickel now worth around RM70,300 ($19,000) a tonne.”
Van der Ent said the technology had been scientifically proven over the past 20 years, but the mining industry had not adopted it at a significant scale.
“This may be the result of a lack of minerals industry awareness of the technology’s potential or of the scientific advances that have been made in metal recovery from plants.
“Industry needs to be encouraged to adopt new technologies that have the potential to improve mine site rehabilitation outcomes and opportunities, especially in developing countries in the tropics,” he said.
Van der Ent said harvesting and incinerating plant biomass could generate a commercial high-grade bio-ore containing 10 to 25 per cent nickel.
“Its purity means it’s uniquely suited to produce organic chemical industry nickel catalysts or highvalue nickel chemicals for use in electroplating.
Global phytomining experts said there was the need to ensure the preservation of rare nickel hyperaccumulator species and their habitats, and develop a Global Hyperaccumulator Database to document key knowledge about the plants.
Some plants known to be associated with mineral deposits (metallophytes) have been used for prospecting for hundreds of years.
These plants not only have the potential to find buried metal ores, but also to reduce risks of metal-contaminated substrates in eventual mine closure via utilisation in a range of phytotechnologies.
A subset of the broader category of metallophytes, rare plants that have the ability to actually accumulate very high concentrations (1-6 pct) of metals such as nickel, cobalt, zinc or copper in their biomass are called ‘hyperaccumulators’.
These plants can be utilised in ‘biogeochemical prospecting’ (locating ore-bodies using indicator properties), ‘phytoextraction’ (cleaning up metal-contaminated soils by capture of metals and removal with biomass), and ‘phytomining’ (commercially producing metals from biomass).
The latter technology entails growing selected hyperaccumulator plants on sub-economic ore bodies or mineral wastes with subsequent harvesting and biomass incineration generating a highgrade bio-ore. The concentration of nickel, for example, in bio-ore (10-25 pct) is far greater than in current mineable lateritic ores. In essence this is ‘metal farming’.
In addition, induced phytomining has also been successfully demonstrated for gold.
Despite the scientific validation of the concept of phytomining in the last two decades, the mining industry has yet to adopt or test the potential of phytomining in a large scale.
In part, this may be the result of a lack of awareness on the part of the industry of hyperaccumulator plants that occur on mining targets and the scientific advances that have been made in potentially capturing a metal product from plant biomass.
This highlights the need to further encourage industry to adopt the application of scientific insights and new technologies that has the potential to improve the outcomes and opportunities from mine site rehabilitation, especially in the developing countries of tropical regions.
The imminent expiry of the main patent protecting phytomining technology (in mid 2015) provides an additional incentive for the minerals industry to start developing phytomining sooner rather than later.