The Centre for Environmental Responsibility in Mining at the Sustainable Minerals Institute studies phytotechnologies for the remediation of mining waste using hyperaccumulator plants. Hyperaccumulators are metal-loving plants that can accumulate metals in above ground tissues up to hundreds or thousand times more than normal plants.
With mining activities increasing their production to supply critical minerals for the energy transition, more than twenty metals have been classified as critical or energy transition metals (including manganese, indium, nickel, rare earth elements and others). Investigating the potential of hyperaccumulator plants to recover critical elements from mine-impacted land could support a decarbonised economy in a sustainable manner by minimising socio-environmental impacts.
Globally, ore grades are declining, and it is becoming ever more difficult – and therefore costlier – to extract target elements. The increasing demand for critical elements challenges conventional methods of resource extraction due to geopolitical access to these reserves. For example, the adoption of lithium-ion batteries with nickel- and/or cobalt-based cathodes, further strains the global supply chain.
Agromining of so-called “metal crops” could provide sustainably sourced nickel and cobalt with a low environmental impact. For example, one of the hyperaccumulator plants we identified can accumulate 2.5% nickel in their leaves, translating to 250 kg of nickel per hectare per year in harvested biomass. A unique characteristic of the bio-sourced nickel is its high purity, influenced by the metal crop, with the ashed biomass containing 20–30% nickel and few of the impurities usually associated with nickel ores. This makes these bio-ores ideally suited for specific applications, particularly in the electrochemical industry, which produces rechargeable batteries.
Research at UQ’s SMI-Centre for Environmental Responsibility in Mining has led to the discovery of more than 120 new-to-science hyperaccumulator plants. The search for more hyperaccumulator plants has intensified in recent years using advanced X-ray fluorescence methods for mass screening of herbarium collections. This has led to a significant increase in the global pool of known hyperaccumulator plants suited to a range of climates and conditions for use as metal crops.
- Attract more investment in non-conventional methods for extracting metals.
- Develop phytotechnologies to remediate soil impacted by mining using hyperaccumulator plants.
- Increase the discovery of hyperaccumulator plants for critical elements.
- Study in detail the ecophysiology of hyperaccumulator plants, understanding which traits are beneficial for phytoremediation.
Project Leader
Dr Amelia Corzo Remigio
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Professor Peter Erskine
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Honorary Professor Alan Baker
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Dr Antony van der Ent
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Dr Philip Nti Nkumarah
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Selected peer-reviewed publications
Corzo-Remigio, Amelia, Harris, Hugh H, Jones, Michael W M, Wang, Tony, Brueckner, Dennis, Spiers, Kathryn M, Garrevoet, Jan, and van der Ent, Antony (2026). The nature of thallium crystals in Brassica oleracea (kale): a synchrotron multi-technique investigation. Metallomics 18 (1) mfag010. https://doi.org/10.1093/mtomcs/mfag010
van der Ent, Antony, Aarts MG Mark, Morel JL, Chaney RL, Baker AJM, Simonnot M-O, Laubie B, Pollard AJ, Tang Y-T, Qiu R-L, Echevarria G (2026) Agromining of Nickel: Finally Becoming a Reality at Commercial Scale. Environmental Science & Technology. doi:10.1021/acs.est.5c08259
Corzo-Remigio, Amelia, Purwadi, Imam, Fox, Nathan, Bostock, Peter D., Martel, Carlos, van der Ent, Antony, and Erskine, Peter D. (2025). Discovery of new Australasian rare earth element hyperaccumulator ferns from screening herbarium specimens. Plant and Soil 518 (2) 1979-1996. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-025-08111-0
Corzo‐Remigio, Amelia, Nkrumah, Philip Nti, Erskine, Peter D., and van der Ent, Antony (2025). Rare earth elements in plants of the Peak Range Volcanics (Queensland), Australia exploration target: a biogeochemical prospecting tool. Ecological Research 41 (1) e70018. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1703.70018
Purwadi, Imam, Erskine, Peter D., Casey, Lachlan W. and van der Ent, Antony (2024). Comparing portable x‐ray fluorescence spectroscopy instrumentation for metallome analysis of herbarium specimens. Ecological Research, 39 (6), 977-987. doi: 10.1111/1440-1703.12501
Corzo-Remigio, Amelia, Harris, Hugh H., Kidman, Clinton J., Nkrumah, Philip Nti, Casey, Lachlan W., Paterson, David J., Edraki, Mansour, and van der Ent, Antony (2024). Mechanisms of uptake and translocation of thallium in Brassica vegetables: An x-ray fluorescence microspectroscopic investigation. Environmental Science and Technology 58 (5) 2373-2383. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c08113
Nkrumah, Philip Nti, Corzo Remigio, Amelia, and van der Ent, Antony (2022). Proof-of-concept of polymetallic phyto-extraction of base metal mine tailings from Queensland, Australia. Plant and Soil 480 (1-2) 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05586-z
Corzo Remigio, Amelia, Chaney, Rufus L., Baker, Alan J. M., Edraki, Mansour, Erskine, Peter D., Echevarria, Guillaume, and van der Ent, Antony (2020). Phytoextraction of high value elements and contaminants from mining and mineral wastes: opportunities and limitations. Plant and Soil 449 (1-2) 11-37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04487-3
van der Ent, Antony, Echevarria, Guillaume, Pollard, A. Joseph and Erskine, Peter D. (2019).X-ray fluorescence ionomics of herbarium collections. Scientific Reports, 9 (1) 4746, 4746. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-40050-6
Erskine, P., van der Ent, A., and Fletcher, A. (2012). Sustaining metal-loving plants in mining regions. Science 337 (6099) 1172-1173. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.337.6099.1172-b
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Dr Amelia Corzo Remigio
Research Fellow
CERM
The University of Queensland