Bioinspired strategies have been given extensive attention for the recovery of rare earth elements (REEs) from waste streams because of their high selectivity, regeneration potential, and sustainability as well as low cost. Lanmodulin protein is an emerging biotechnology that is highly selective for REE binding. Mimicking lanmodulin with shorter peptides is advantageous because they are simpler and potentially easier to manipulate and optimize. Lanmodulin-derived peptides have been found to bind REEs, but their properties have not been explored when immobilized on solid substrates, which is required for many advanced separation technologies. Here, two peptides, LanM1 and scrambled LanM1, are designed from the EF-hand loop 1 of lanmodulin and investigated for their binding affinity toward different REEs when surface-bound. First, the ability of LanM1 to bind REEs was confirmed and characterized in solution using circular dichroism (CD), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for Ce(III) ions. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) was used to further analyze the binding of the LanM1 to Ce(III), Nd(III), Eu(III), and Y(III) ions and in low-pH conditions. The performance of the immobilized peptides on a model gold surface was examined using a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D). The studies show that the LanM1 peptide has a stronger REE binding affinity than that of scrambled LanM1 when in solution and when immobilized on a gold surface. QCM-D data were fit to the Langmuir adsorption model to estimate the surface-bound dissociation constant (K_d) of LanM1 with Ce(III) and Nd(III). The results indicate that LanM1 peptides maintain a high affinity for REEs when immobilized, and surface-bound LanM1 has no affinity for potential competitor calcium and copper ions. The utility of surface-bound LanM1 peptides was further demonstrated by immobilizing them to gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and capturing REEs from solution in experiments utilizing an Arsenazo III-based colorimetric dye displacement assay and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectrophotometry. The saturated adsorption capacity of GNPs was estimated to be around 3.5 μmol REE/g for Ce(III), Nd(III), Eu(III), and Y(III) ions, with no binding of non-REE Ca(II) ions observed.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a vital part of many technologies with particular importance to the renewable energy sector and there is a pressing need for environmentally friendly and sustainable processes to recover and recycle them from waste streams.