<ul><li>Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a cleaner and more efficient way to extract rare earth elements used in electric vehicles and advanced technologies.</li><li>They created artificial membrane channels inspired by proteins in our bodies, which selectively allow certain rare earth elements like europium and terbium to pass through while blocking common ions.</li><li>These channels showed a strong preference for middle rare earth elements and could potentially reduce the dependence on imported materials for green technologies.</li><li>The technology has the potential to be scaled up for industrial use and may also be adapted to extract other important minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel.</li></ul>

This tiny filter could revolutionize electric vehicle materials

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