Every year, the world mines for billions of tones of metals. And the way we do it often comes at a huge cost to the environment. Nickel is one metal in huge demand as a vital component of electric vehicle batteries.

One solution is blooming in an unexpected corner of the world in the form of a very special plant called Odontarrhena chalcidica. This hyperaccumulator species thrives only in nickel-rich ultramafic soils, which cover around 11 percent of Albania. These soils are normally toxic and unfit for farming, but the plants have evolved to draw up metals like nickel through their roots and store them in their leaves and stems. Once harvested, the plants are burned and the nickel is extracted from their ash.

The process, known as phytomining or agromining, is far more efficient and vastly less energy-intensive than traditional mining. It also offers a second benefit: cleaning and restoring contaminated soils, making them viable for future agriculture.

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RAZOR's Reya El-Salahi meets Professor Aida Bani at the Agricultural University of Tirana. She has dedicated more than a decade to researching these hyperaccumulators, analyzing their ability to absorb metals and studying how they could help both industry and the environment.

In northern Albania, the start-up MetalPlant is scaling up phytomining. They are cultivating seven hectares of hyperaccumulator fields in Tropoja, aiming to "farm metal" rather than dig it out of the ground. To go even further, they are using a process called enhanced rock weathering. By crushing olivine rock and spreading it across their fields, they not only boost nickel uptake in the plants but also capture CO₂ as the rock naturally reacts with rainwater, locking it away as stable carbonates.

This pioneering combination of phytomining and carbon removal could make the production of nickel not just cleaner, but carbon negative. If successful, it may place Albania at the forefront of a new, greener approach to mining, where flowers hold the key to powering the world's electric future.