Bioweg, TU Berlin Win €1.5M for Bio-Based REE Recovery

Bioweg and Technische Universität Berlin have won €1.5 million from SPRIND under the Tech Metal Transformation Challenge to develop a water-based platform for recovering rare earth elements (REEs).
The grant funds a three-year Stage 1 effort after the teams were selected among eight finalists by an expert jury. The project pairs Bioweg's waste-stream fermentation and bacterial cellulose operations — which produce bio-based acids as a secondary output — with TU Berlin's peptide-based separation technology.
The combined process runs in aqueous media at ambient temperature without organic solvents or high heat, targeting selective REE extraction with lower energy consumption, reduced CO2 emissions and minimal toxic effluent. Bioweg emphasizes that its bioacids require no additional downstream processing, improving process efficiency.
The work responds to surging European demand for REEs driven by electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronics, and to the EU's supply concentration risk. Collaboration with TU Berlin professor Juri Rappsilber aims to bridge UniSysCat fundamental research and industrial-scale application to create a circular, end-to-end route that yields recovered metals suitable for direct functional use.