scholarly journals The Microbiology of Metal Mine Waste: Bioremediation Applications and Implications for Planetary Health

GeoHealth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Newsome ◽  
Carmen Falagán
2010 ◽  
Vol 73 (5) ◽  
pp. 727-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberlea Driedger ◽  
Lynn P. Weber ◽  
Carrie J. Rickwood ◽  
Monique G. Dubé ◽  
David M. Janz

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-518
Author(s):  
Joyce S. Clemente ◽  
Philippa Huntsman

Increased temperatures and changing amounts of precipitation may alter environments, increasing the challenges faced by mines. This is a paper on topics relevant to metal mine biogeochemical environments, related waste management, element transport, and environment health south of 60° latitude. Mine waste can contain elements of interest (EOI) that may have adverse environmental and biological effects at concentrations that are higher than in undisturbed sites. Elevated concentrations of EOIs are transported by water as solutes and particles. Wind erosion also transports particles, and establishing its contribution and effects is challenging. Dispersal of EOI can be controlled at the source using water covers, geomembranes, geosynthetic clay liners, and covers with capillary barrier effects. Drainage that can be produced over a wide range of pH must be treated to meet environmental requirements. Water treatment can produce sludge that must be stored or processed. The success of these mitigation measures can be observed in the biological health of organisms at the site and vicinity. Processes responsible for EOI dissolution and transport, waste control and water management systems, and the stress experienced by biota near mines are all subject to climate change effects. Understanding and adapting to challenges from a rapidly changing environment will require cooperation between industry, government, mining communities, and scientists. Ideally, adaptation measures should correspond to temperature and precipitation projections, but this information is not always available at the relevant geographic scale. To anticipate emerging risks, it may be necessary to explore a variety of scenarios at lab and field scales, and to implement robust and flexible management techniques.


2011 ◽  
Vol 347-353 ◽  
pp. 1436-1441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Bin Chen

In this study, the bacterium was identified as Sphingomonas sp. XJ2 by means of microscopic examination, physiological, biochemical detection, and modern molecular biology technology. After acclimatization for several times, this bacterium has good performance in removing heavy metals and organic matter from seawater. Alginate immobilized cells has obvious holes on the surface and has big specific surface area, which are conducive to the adsorption of metal ions. Hydration heat of Pb2+ is small, and is most likely to drop out of ligand water then become exposed Pb2+; in addition, the ionic radius of Pb2+ and is very similar to the ball K+ and is adsorbed by the ball easily. FTIR and XPS study indicated that Pb (II) was complexed by C-H and C-O bonds. The concentration of Pb(Ⅱ)of mine wastewater reach the first class of irrigation water quality standards after the first time of adsorption treatment, and reach the first class of fishery water quality standard after the second treatment. 1. Introduction Mine waste water mainly comes from mine production, the main pollutants including heavy metals, acid, organic pollutants, oil pollutants, cyanide, fluoride and soluble salts and so on. Heavy metal pollution and acid pollution are the most common water pollutions, the mainly heavy metals from wastewater are lead, zinc, nickel, copper, mercury, chromium, cadmium, cobalt, manganese, titanium, vanadium and bismuth. Hazards of mine waste water including environmental degradation and toxic to organisms; mine waste water contains heavy metal ions and other metal ions, through infiltration, percolation and runoff channels walk into the environment, then pollute water. After precipitation, absorption, complexation, chelation and redox, migrate and change in the water, and ultimately affect human health and aquatic growth. Heavy metals and metalloids and other pollutants in wastewater once enter the water environment, they can not be biodegradable, but by precipitation - dissolution, oxidation - reduction, coordinate effect, colloid formation effect, adsorption - desorption process and a series of physical and chemical migration transformation, which will eventually as one or more form stay in the environment for a long term, causing permanent potentially damage [1]. How to prevent non-ferrous metal mine waste water polluting water and farmland is one of the current problems which arising large public attention. Traditional treat methods of heavy metal waste water are chemical precipitation, ion exchange, evaporation and electrolysis, etc., these methods have disadvantages of high investment and operating costs, precipitation removal is not satisfactory, and could easily lead to secondary pollution and other defects. Since 1980s, people began to turn to research microbial treatment of heavy metal waste water, and found that microbial treatment of wastewater had advantages of low cost, effective and no secondary pollution. The economical and ecological feasibility of biosorption processes depend on the biosorbent metal uptake capacity to reach metal concentration legal limits for wastewater discharge and the ability of eluants to release sequestered metal in subsequent recovery [2-4]. Recovery allows metal recycling, leading to energy savings and materials conservation[5]. Finally, biosorbent regeneration used in multiple adsorption–desorption cycles [6], contributes to process cost effectiveness. Living cells have so broad assortment of mechanisms for surviving in environment that have elevated metal concentrations, including transport and intracellular and extracellular sequestration .The active process of metal accumulation by cells is usually referred to as bioaccumulation, while the passive metal sequestration by cell components is generally called biosorption. The physicochemical basis for metal sequestration at the cell surface may include complexation, coordination, chelation, ion exchange, adsorption, and inorganic microprecipitation processes. Bacteria make excellent biosorbents because of their high surface-to-volume ratios. Metal-binding behaviour has been evaluated on the basis of bacterial cell Gram reaction for viable cells and cell walls and envelopes. In this study, we conducted separation domesticated culture to Sphingomonas sp. XJ2 and used them to treat waste water preliminarily. Establishing an efficient, cheap, adaptable and easy to operate way of treating non-ferrous metal mine wastewater is a new development.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 244-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joselito M. Arocena ◽  
Jan M. van Mourik ◽  
Madeleine L. M. Schilder ◽  
Angel Faz Cano

1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.T. Williams ◽  
T. McNeilly ◽  
E.M.H. Wellington
Keyword(s):  

Plants ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Oleńska ◽  
Valeria Imperato ◽  
Wanda Małek ◽  
Tadeusz Włostowski ◽  
Małgorzata Wójcik ◽  
...  

Heavy metals in soil, as selective agents, can change the structure of plant-associated bacterial communities and their metabolic properties, leading to the selection of the most-adapted strains, which might be useful in phytoremediation. Trifolium repens, a heavy metal excluder, naturally occurs on metal mine waste heaps in southern Poland characterized by high total metal concentrations. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of toxic metals on the diversity and metabolic properties of the microbial communities in rhizospheric soil and vegetative tissues of T. repens growing on three 70–100-years old Zn–Pb mine waste heaps in comparison to Trifolium-associated bacteria from a non-polluted reference site. In total, 113 cultivable strains were isolated and used for 16S rRNA gene Sanger sequencing in order to determine their genetic affiliation and for in vitro testing of their plant growth promotion traits. Taxa richness and phenotypic diversity in communities of metalliferous origin were significantly lower (p < 0.0001) compared to those from the reference site. Two strains, Bacillus megaterium BolR EW3_A03 and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia BolN EW3_B03, isolated from a Zn–Pb mine waste heap which tested positive for all examined plant growth promoting traits and which showed co-tolerance to Zn, Cu, Cd, and Pb can be considered as potential facilitators of phytostabilization.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Heather De-Quincey

Abandoned mines are considered among the most severe of environmental issues, and are a significant danger to environmental, animal, and human health (Mehta et al., 2020). To date, ~ 600,000 abandoned mines exist, the costly reclamation of which often falls to publicly funded bodies (Archer & Caldwell, 2004; Mayes et al., 2009). Traditional reclamation methods are financially unattainable at ~ £50 million per large mine (McKenna, 2002), and an alternative, lower-cost method is required (Garcia, 2008). One contemporary reclamation method found to be effective is that of capping mine waste with a soil cover (O’Kane & Ayres, 2012). In this research, an adhesive surrogate soil capping layer for the hydraulic application to steep-sided metal-mine tailings was developed at the cost of ~ £6 .m-² (at the time of writing). The surrogate soil was refined throughout a series of trials. A rainfall trial was conducted to develop an adhesive and erosion resistant soil material. A germination trial (N = 500) determined the soil materials which best assisted rapid plant establishment. The successful results of these laboratory-based trials guided a nine-month field trial on an abandoned Pb mine, Nantymwyn (UK) (N = 154). The field trial concluded that the surrogate soils effectively resisted erosion and supported the early (seven month) growth of metal-tolerant grass species. The grasses contained Pb, Zn, Cd and Cu concentrations at < 1% of the phytotoxic threshold. However, seasonal climatic events and a negative water balance ultimately led to complete grass mortality after nine months. Tailings bank destabilisation also influenced grass survival. The research revealed that the soil’s available water supply was of greater impact to plant survival than metal toxicity. The results indicated that should the soils water-holding capacity be improved, the application of a carefully designed surrogate soil has the potential to support vegetative cover on steep, bare metal-mine tailings.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 2089-2096
Author(s):  
Artwell Kanda ◽  
George Nyamadzawo ◽  
Jephita Gotosa ◽  
Nathan Nyamutora ◽  
Willis Gwenzi

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