The increasing demand of different essential metals as a consequence of the development of new technologies, especially in the so called “low carbon technologies” require the development of innovative technologies that enable an economic and environmentally friendly metal recovery from primary and secondary resources. There is serious concern that the demand of some critical elements might exceed the present supply within a few years, thus necessitating the development of novel strategies and technologies to meet the requirements of industry and society. Besides an improvement of exploitation and processing of ores, the more urgent issue of recycling of strategic metals has to be enforced. However, current recycling rates are very low due to the increasing complexity of products and the low content of certain critical elements, thus hindering an economic metal recovery. On the other hand, increasing environmental consciousness as well as limitations of classical methods require innovative recycling methodologies in order to enable a circular economy. Modern biotechnologies can contribute to solve some of the problems related to metal recycling. These approaches use natural properties of organisms, bio-compounds, and biomolecules to interact with minerals, materials, metals, or metal ions such as surface attachment, mineral dissolution, transformation, and metal complexation. Further, modern genetic approaches, e.g. realized by synthetic biology, enable the smart design of new chemicals. The article presents some recent developments in the fields of bioleaching, biosorption, bioreduction, and bioflotation, and their use for metal recovery from different waste materials. Currently only few of these developments are commercialized. Major limitations are high costs in comparison to conventional methods and low element selectivity. The article discusses future trends to overcome these barriers. Especially interdisciplinary approaches, the combination of different technologies, the inclusion of modern genetic methods, as well as the consideration of existing, yet unexplored natural resources will push innovations in these fields.

由于新技术的发展，尤其是在所谓的“低碳技术”中，对不同基本金属的需求不断增长，这就要求开发创新技术，以使经济和环境友好的金属能够从一次和二次资源中回收。严重关切的是，一些关键要素的需求可能会在几年内超过目前的供应，因此有必要开发新的战略和技术以满足工业和社会的需求。除了改善矿石的开采和加工之外，还必须执行战略性金属循环利用这一更为紧迫的问题。但是，由于产品的复杂性不断提高以及某些关键元素的含量低，目前的回收率非常低，因此阻碍了金属的经济复苏。另一方面，越来越多的环境意识以及传统方法的局限性要求创新的循环利用方法，以实现循环经济。现代生物技术可以帮助解决一些与金属回收相关的问题。这些方法利用生物，生物化合物和生物分子的自然特性与矿物质，材料，金属或金属离子相互作用，例如表面附着，矿物质溶解，转化和金属络合。此外，例如通过合成生物学实现的现代遗传方法使得能够智能设计新化学品。本文介绍了生物浸出，生物吸附，生物还原和生物浮选领域中的一些最新进展，以及它们在从不同废料中回收金属的应用。目前，这些开发中只有极少数被商业化。与传统方法相比，主要的局限性是高成本和元素选择性低。本文讨论了克服这些障碍的未来趋势。尤其是跨学科的方法，不同技术的结合，现代遗传方法的纳入以及对现有但尚未开发的自然资源的考虑，将推动这些领域的创新。