US EPA

1022123 

Journal Article 

Biomineralization based remediation of As(III) contaminated soil by Sporosarcina ginsengisoli 

Achal, V; Pan, X; Fu, Q; Zhang, D 

2012 

Yes 

Journal of Hazardous Materials
ISSN: 0304-3894
EISSN: 1873-3336 

201-202 

178-184 

English 

22154871 

10.1016/j.jhazmat.2011.11.067 

WOS:000300262400023 

Arsenic is a highly toxic metalloid and has posed high risk to the environment. As(III) is highly mobile in soil and leached easily into groundwater. The current remediation techniques are not sufficient to immobilize this toxic element. In the present study, an As(III) tolerant bacterium Sporosarcina ginsengisoli CR5 was isolated from As contaminated soil of Urumqi, China. We investigated the role of microbial calcite precipitated by this bacterium to remediate soil contaminated with As(III). The bacterium was able to grow at high As(III) concentration of 50mM. In order to obtain arsenic distribution pattern, five stage soil sequential extraction was carried out. Arsenic mobility was found to significantly decrease in the exchangeable fraction of soil and subsequently the arsenic concentration was markedly increased in carbonated fraction after bioremediation. Microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) process in bioremediation was further confirmed by ATR-FTIR and XRD analyses. XRD spectra showed presence of various biomineralization products such as calcite, gwihabaite, aragonite and vaterite in bioremediated soil samples. The results from this study have implications that MICP based bioremediation by S. ginsengisoli is a viable, environmental friendly technology for remediation of the arsenic contaminated sites. 

Arsenic; Sporosarcina ginsengisoli; Microbial calcite; Bioremediation