RETRACTED: Biosorption of Eu(III) and U(VI) on Bacillus subtilis: Macroscopic and modeling investigation

Elimination of uranium pollution from coastal nuclear power plant by marine microorganisms: Capability and mechanism

Uranium is one of the sensitive radionuclides in the wastewater of nuclear powers. Due to the fact that nuclear powers are mainly located in coastal areas, the elimination of uranium (U(VI)) pollution from coastal nuclear power is ultimately rely on marine microorganisms. The fixing of U(VI) on V. alginolyticus surface or converting it into sediments is an effective elimination strategy for U(VI) pollution. In this work, typical marine microorganism V. alginolyticus was used to evaluate the elimination of U(VI) pollution by marine microorganisms. Effects of solution conditions (such as pH, temperature, and bacterium concentrations) on the physicochemical properties and elimination capabilities of V. alginolyticus were studied in detail. FT-IR, XPS and XRD results reveal that COOH, NH2, OH and PO4 on V. alginolyticus were main functional groups for U(VI) elimination and formed (UO2)3(PO4)2·H2O. The elimination of U(VI) by V. alginolyticus includes two stages of adsorption and biomineralization. The theoretical maximum adsorption capacity (Cs,max) of V. alginolyticus for U(VI) can reach up to 133 mg/g at pH 5 and 298 K, and the process reached equilibrium in 3 h. Results show that V. alginolyticus play important role in the elimination of U(VI) pollution in seawater.

Highly efficient immobilization of environmental uranium contamination with Pseudomonas stutzeri by biosorption, biomineralization, and bioreduction

Uranium is a heavy metal with both chemotoxicity and radiotoxicity. Due to the increasing consumption of uranium, the remediation of uranium contamination and recovery of uranium from non-conventional approach is highly needed. Microorganism exhibits high potential for immobilization of uranium. This study for the first time isolated a marine Pseudomonas stutzeri strain MRU-UE1 with high uranium immobilization capacity of 308.72 mg/g, which is attributed to the synergetic mechanisms of biosorption, biomineralization, and bioreduction. The uranium is found to be immobilized in forms of tetragonal chernikovite (H₂(UO₂)₂(PO₄)₂·8H₂O) by biomineralization and CaU(PO₄)₂ by bioreduction under aerobic environment, which is rarely observed and would broaden the application of this strain in aerobic condition. The protein, phosphate group, and carboxyl group are found to be essential for the biosorption of uranium. In response to the stress of uranium, the strain produces inorganic phosphate group, which transformed soluble uranyl ion to insoluble uranium-containing precipitates, and poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), which is observed for the first time during the interaction between microorganism and uranium. In summary, P. stutzeri strain MRU-UE1 would be a promising alternative for environmental uranium contamination remediation and uranium extraction from seawater.

Adsorption behavior and mechanism of Serratia marcescens for Eu(III) in rare earth wastewater

Directly discharging low-concentration rare-earth wastewater not only wastes rare-earth resources but also pollutes the environment. In this study, the biosorption behavior of Serratia marcescens for Eu(III) was studied with emphasis on the optimization of adsorption conditions, adsorption kinetics, and adsorption isotherm. It was shown that the maximum adsorption capacity of Serratia marcescens reached 115.36 mg·g^-1 under an optimal condition, indicating the good adsorption capability of Serratia marcescens for Eu(III). The adsorption kinetics and adsorption isotherm analysis showed that the adsorption process conforms to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir adsorption isotherm, indicating that the adsorption of Eu(III) by Serratia marcescens is a monolayer chemical adsorption process. In addition, the adsorption mechanism was investigated by using characterizations of zeta potential, scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDS), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. It was revealed that the adsorption of Eu(III) by S. marcescens is a combination of electrostatic attraction, ions exchange and coordination. These findings indicate that S. marcescens can be used as a potential biosorbent to recover rare earth elements from rare earth wastewater.

Molecular Binding of EuIII/CmIII by Stenotrophomonas bentonitica and Its Impact on the Safety of Future Geodisposal of Radioactive Waste

Microbial communities occurring in reference materials for artificial barriers (e.g., bentonites) in future deep geological repositories of radioactive waste can influence the migration behavior of radionuclides such as curium (Cm^III). This study investigates the molecular interactions between Cm^III and its inactive analogue europium (Eu^III) with the indigenous bentonite bacterium Stenotrophomonas bentonitica at environmentally relevant concentrations. Potentiometric studies showed a remarkably high concentration of phosphates at the bacterial cell wall compared to other bacteria, revealing the great potential of S. bentonitica for metal binding. Infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed the role of phosphates and carboxylate groups from the cell envelope in the bioassociation of Eu^III. Additionally, time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy (TRLFS) identified phosphoryl and carboxyl groups from bacterial envelopes, among other released complexing agents, to be involved in the Eu^III and Cm^III coordination. The ability of this bacterium to form a biofilm at the surface of bentonites allows them to immobilize trivalent lanthanide and actinides in the environment.

Adsorption and Desorption Mechanisms of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) by Layered Double Hydroxide (LDH) Modified with Chelating Agents

In order to obtain the adsorption mechanism and adsorption structures of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) ions adsorbed onto layered double hydroxides (LDH), the adsorption performance of LDH and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) intercalated LDH for REEs was investigated by batch experiments and regeneration studies. In addition to adsorption capacity, the partition coefficient (PC) was also evaluated to assess their true performance metrics. The adsorption capacity of LDH increases from 24.9 μg·g−1 to 145 μg·g−1 for Eu, and from 20.8 μg·g−1 to 124 μg·g−1 for La by intercalating EDTA in this work; and PC increases from 45.5 μg·g−1·uM−1 to 834 μg·g−1·uM−1 for Eu, and from 33.6 μg·g−1·μM−1 to 405 μg·g−1·μM−1 for La. Comparison of the data indicates that the adsorption affinity of EDTA-intercalated LDH is better than that of precursor LDH no matter whether the concept of adsorption capacity or that of the PC was used. The prepared adsorbent was characterized by XRD, SEM-EDS and FT-IR techniques. Moreover, quantum chemistry calculations were also performed using the GAUSSIAN09 program package. In this calculation, the molecular locally stable state structures were optimized by density functional theory (DFT). Both the quantum chemistry calculations and the experimental data showed that REEs ions adsorbed by EDTA-intercalated LDH are more stable than those adsorbed by precursor LDH. Furthermore, the calculation results of adsorption and desorption rates show that adsorption rates are larger for Eu(III) than for La(III), which agrees with the experimental result that Eu(III) has a higher adsorption ability under the same conditions. The LDHs synthesized in this work have a high affinity for removing REEs ions.

Kinetic and equilibrium of U(VI) biosorption onto the resistant bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens

This study evaluated U(VI) biosorption properties by the resistant bacterium, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, which was isolated from the soils with residual radionuclides. The effect of biosorption factors (uptake time, pH, ionic concentration, biosorbent dosage and temperature) on U(VI) removal was determined by batch experiments. The uptake processes were characterized by using SEM, FTIR, and XPS. The experimental data of U(VI) biosorption were fitted by the pseudo-second-order. The maximum uptake capacity was 179.5 mg/g at pH 6.0 by Langmuir model. The thermodynamic results: ΔG^о, ΔH^о and ΔS^о for uptake processes were calculated as -6.359 kJ/mol, 14.20 kJ/mol and 67.19 J/mol/K, respectively. The results showed that the biosorption of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens will be an ideal method to remove radionuclides.