Cd and Proton Adsorption onto Bacterial Consortia Grown from Industrial Wastes and Contaminated Geologic Settings

Abstract

To model the effects of bacterial metal adsorption in contaminated environments, results from metal adsorption experiments involving individual pure stains of bacteria must be extrapolated to systems in which potentially dozens of bacterial species are present. This extrapolation may be made easier because bacterial consortia from natural environments appear to exhibit similar metal binding properties. However, bacteria that thrive in highly perturbed contaminated environments may exhibit significantly different adsorptive behavior. Here we measure proton and Cd adsorption onto a range of bacterial consortia grown from heavily contaminated industrial wastes, groundwater, and soils. We model the results using a discrete site surface complexation approach to determine binding constants and site densities for each consortium. The results demonstrate that bacterial consortia from different contaminated environments exhibit a range of total site densities (approximately a 3-fold difference) and Cd-binding constants (approximately a 10-fold difference). These ranges for Cd binding constants may be small enough to suggest that bacteria-metal adsorption in contaminated environments can be described using relatively few "averaged" bacteria-metal binding constants (in conjunction with the necessary binding constants for competing surfaces and ligands). However, if additional precision is necessary, modeling parameters must be developed separately for each contaminated environment of interest.

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Absorption; Bacteria; Cadmium; Contamination; Groundwater pollution; Protons; Soils; Bacterial species; Contaminated environments; Metal adsorption; Modeling parameters; Industrial wastes; cadmium; ground water; metal; proton; adsorption; bacterium; cadmium; industrial waste; pollutant removal; adsorption; bacterial growth; binding affinity; binding site; complex formation; contamination; controlled study; density; geology; industrial waste; measurement; model; nonhuman; soil; surface property; Adsorption; Bacteria; Cadmium; Industrial Waste; Models; Biological; Protons; Soil Microbiology; Soil Pollutants; Water Pollutants; Bacteria (microorganisms)

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0013-936X

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2004 American Chemical Society (ACS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Oct 2004

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