Biorecovery of uranium from aqueous solutions at the expense of phytic acid

Bio-Reclamation of Strategic and Energy Critical Metals from Secondary Resources

“…The interactions of REEs with biogenic phosphates and specific transporter uptake are two recently disclosed processes having the potential to recover the REEs from aqueous waste streams. Firstly, the sorption on, or the encapsulation into the biogenic phosphate nano-minerals and the formation of REE-phosphate complexes were demonstrated using biofilms of Serratia strains [37,38]. Using an extremophile, acidophilic methanotrophic Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum, Pol et al [39] observed that the function of methanol dehydrogenase (MDH) in this bacterium strictly depends on the presence of REEs.…”

“…Bio precipitation of uranium as HUO 2 PO 4 from waste streams using bacterial phosphate has long been studied for hydrolytic release of inorganic phosphates [100]. To improve the economy of bioprecipitation, Paterson-Beedle et al [38] used phytic acid, a waste product of plants as the phosphate source in the system. Furthermore, the phosphatase activity of microbial cultures was improved by the overexpression of phosphatase through genetic engineering.…”

Uranium Bioreduction and Biomineralization

“…However, inorganic phosphates may precipitate rapidly causing clogging and are not easily dispersed in the environment (Wellman et al, 2006). Other cost-effective organic phosphate sources such as tributyl phosphate (TBP) (Thomas and Macaskie, 1996) and phytic acid (from plant waste) (Paterson-Beedle et al, 2010) have been tested for overcoming the high cost posed by use of glycerol phosphates.…”

Biorecycling of Precious Metals and Rare Earth Elements

“…Since the model substrate glycerol 2-phosphate is unattractive at industrial-scale a cheaper substrate like phytic acid (inositol phosphate) would be more appropriate. The latter was shown to support metal removal (Paterson-Beedle et al, 2010) and it contains 3 moles phosphate per mole, with the phosphate groups removed sequentially via phytase activity (see PatersonBeedle et al, 2010). Hence a phytic acid-based column system may have three K m values and be more difficult to describe mathematically, but this represents a potentially attractive route for potential metal recovery from wastes.…”

“…This was harnessed to the deposition of uranium (Dick et al, 1995) and lanthanum (Boswell et al, 2001) phosphates in a similar way to those biomanufactured using the phosphatase route (above), in a continuous process (Boswell et al, 2001). As a third approach, the use of phytic acid (inositol phosphate, a component of plant wastes and a by product from biodiesel production) as the phosphate donor molecule has been shown to have good economic potential for metal biorecovery (Paterson-Beedle et al, 2010) .…”