Experimental Investigation on Bioremediation of Heavy Metal Contaminated Solution by Sporosarcina pasteurii under Some Complex Conditions

Abstract

Bioremediation of contaminated solutions has attracted extensive attention in recent years due to its wide range of applicability to various types of contaminants and environmental friendliness. Previous studies adequately confirmed the potential of Sporosarcina pasteurii (i.e., S. pasteurii)-based bioremediation for heavy metal contaminated solutions, but they focused mainly on the bioremediation ability of single-heavy-metal contaminated solutions. This study focuses on S. pasteurii-based bioremediation under more complex pollution conditions. A series of laboratory experiments were performed to explore the efficiency and mechanism of S. pasteurii-based bioremediation to heavy metal contaminated solutions under various conditions, including single-heavy-metal pollution condition, heavy metal pollution under high mineral salinity context and multi-heavy-metal pollution scenarios. The results show that S. pasteurii can effectively remove heavy metals such as Cd, Cr(III), and Zn through biomineralization; for the typical range of mineral salinity (including NaCl and KCl) possibly encountered in practice in some contaminated solutions, such as leachate of landfills, the detrimental influence of high mineral salinity on efficiency of S. pasteurii-based bioremediation can be neglected; more importantly, S. pasteurii-based bioremediation can be considered as a potential option for remedying multi-heavy-metal contaminated solutions, though the addition of some heavy metals tends to produce a substantially detrimental influence on the bioremediation ability of S. pasteurii to other heavy metals.