Biomining of MoS2 with Peptide-based Smart Biomaterials

Abstract

Biomining of valuable metals using a target specific approach promises increased purification yields and decreased cost. Target specificity can be implemented with proteins/peptides, the biological molecules, responsible from various structural and functional pathways in living organisms by virtue of their specific recognition abilities towards both organic and inorganic materials. Phage display libraries are used to identify peptide biomolecules capable of specifically recognizing and binding organic/inorganic materials of interest with high affinities. Using combinatorial approaches, these molecular recognition elements can be converted into smart hybrid biomaterials and harnessed for biotechnological applications. Herein, we used a commercially available phage-display library to identify peptides with specific binding affinity to molybdenite (MoS2) and used them to decorate magnetic NPs. These peptide-coupled NPs could capture MoS2 under a variety of environmental conditions. The same batch of NPs could be re-used multiple times to harvest MoS2, clearly suggesting that this hybrid material was robust and recyclable. The advantages of this smart hybrid biomaterial with respect to its MoS2-binding specificity, robust performance under environmentally challenging conditions and its recyclability suggests its potential application in harvesting MoS2 from tailing ponds and downstream mining processes.

Interpretable molecular models for molybdenum disulfide and insight into selective peptide recognition

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Several studies on the adsorption of peptide molecules on the MoS 2 surface have been reported and indicate that the hydrophobicity, aromatic structure and electrostatic properties of amino acids are important factors affecting adsorption and surface assembly. [87][88][89][90][91][92] However, experimental data remain qualitative in nature, including AFM, TEM imaging, binding information from concentration measurements, QCM, XPS, CD, Raman shis, and relative ranking from washing cycles in phage display. Quantitative binding energies and conformations in solutions are not accessible.…”

“…Other reported peptides with high binding constants in experiments include GVIHRNDQWTAPGGG and DRWVARDPASIFGGG, as well as a weakly binding/non-binding peptide SVMNTSTKDAIEGGG. 88 The interpretation of binding residues in ref. 88 relied exclusively on MD simulation with a misleading force eld, indicating Val, Pro, and Trp as binding residues, whereas Val and Pro are expected to bind weakly according to other studies.…”

“…A more likely interpretation of the experimental data in ref. 88 is to consider Trp, Phe, Arg, Asn, Gln, and perhaps His as significantly binding residues in the rst two peptides, with Ser and Thr serving as linkers for conformational exibility. These binding residues, except 1 Asn, are missing in the 3 rd nonbinding peptide, and only 1 intermediately binding Met is present, explaining the difference in relative binding strength and far lower adsorbed amount in experiment.…”

An Overview of Molecular Modeling for Drug Discovery with Specific Illustrative Examples of Applications

“…It has been shown that the presence of the phenyl ring in peptide sequences with and without F is sufficient as a molecular switch to convert cuboctahedral or cubic nanocrystals into tetrahedral during the growth process [86]. In particular, decorated metal nanoparticles have applications in biomining [87], cell targeting, imaging, and therapeutic purposes [88,89]. Specific binding of peptides on graphene [90,91,92,93,94] has also been investigated both computationally and experimentally.…”

Ultrahigh‐throughput screening system for directed polymer binding peptide evolution

“…Particulate matter binding peptides (binding of Cu and Zn compounds) were used as probes to detect air pollution (Alvin, Tanaka, & Okochi, ). Material binding peptides were also adapted for biomining, whereby magnetic nanoparticles were coated with a molybdenite (MoS 2 ) binding peptide to harvest the trace element in copper and tungsten mines (Cetinel, Aminpour, Wang, Borujeny, Sharma, & Montemagno, ).…”