Possibility of bacterial leaching of antimony, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel, and zinc from contaminated sediment

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThere is an environmental risk of Sb becoming a major pollutant due to the quick increase in the production of Sb industry. However, there have been few investigations on interactions between Sb and microorganisms and bioremediation of Sb this paper presents an investigation on bioleaching of Sb from contaminated sediment which is collected in the vicinity of a Sb processing plant using the iron-oxidizer, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. The bioleaching of Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn in the sediment was also investigated to compare with that of sb. Duplicated batch-type experiments based on different incubation time, on the presence or absence of Fe 2+ and/ or Ag + , were conducted to compare the efficiency of metal extraction. After bioleaching, 97.4% of Ni, 95.2% of Mn, 65.8% of Cr, 36.2% of Cu, 34.8% of Zn, and 2.2% of Sb were extracted from sediments. The extraction efficiency of Sb was the lowest in comparison to those of Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn. This result indicated that Sb is difficult to solubilize by bacterial leaching. The catalytic effect of Ag + was not observed, which could be due to the inhibition of Ag + on the activity of A. ferrooxidans and formation of Ag jarosite precipitation on the surface of sediment particles. Though the extraction of Sb was not efficient, this study demonstrates the potential for Sb to be bioleached and a feasible technique in remediation of Sb.

EFFECT OF pH, MINING TAILINGS CONCENTRATION AND CULTURE MEDIUM ON THE PERFORMANCE OF POLYMETALLIC BIOLEACHING AT FLASK LEVEL

“…These results are in agreement with Nguyen et al (2015b), who reported 90 and 30 % of Mn and Zn solubilization, respectively, in a medium without nitrogen sources (experiments were carried out at 5 % of sediment and inoculated with Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans).…”

“…For all the media evaluated in this report with high pH and tailings concentrations, probably the removal of metals obtained was mainly influenced by chemical lixiviation catalyzed by Fe 2+ and biogenic H 2 SO 4 (reaction 2) (Nguyen et al 2015b).…”

“…Results obtained from the first set of experiments showed three significant positive correlations (Table III) the first experiment were obtained. It is evident that the production and sustentation of leaching media are essential to achieve an effective process (Nguyen et al 2015b).…”

“…All experiments were carried out for 17 days to improve the target metals solubilization, in accordance with some authors (Gericke et al 2008, Lavalle et al 2008, Nguyen et al 2015b.…”

Efficiency of Phytoremediation on the Sediments Co-Contaminated by Heavy Metals and Organic Compounds and the Role of Microbes in the Remediation System

“…Vouillamoz and Milke, for example, have shown convincing evidence that rye grass is effective in removing mixed contaminants from soil (Vouillamoz and Mike, 2001). The most common contaminants found in mixed-contaminated soil (Cheng et al, 2008), such as co-contaminated river sediment are pyrene, phenanthrene, lead and zinc (Wang et al, 2014., Akcil et al, 2015;Nguyen et al, 2015). To date, studies on enhanced phytoremediation have not yet addressed the rhizosphere effect on mixed contaminants (Priha et al, 1999).…”