Abstract
Environmental pollution by toxic heavy metals because of mining, metallurgic processes, and irrigation with primary treated sewage water is a global problem. This study was designed to investigate bioremediation of mercury by bacterial mixtures. The bacterial strains were isolated from the mercury mine and microbial fertilizer using the serial dilution and plate streaking. The following parameters were monitored during the experiment: growth curve, pH, time, inoculation quantity and resistance to mercury best. The mechanism of adsorption was examined utilizing FTIR, XRD and SEM–EDS studies. The obtained results revealed that three bacterial strains were identified as Klebsiella pneumonia, Bacillus toyonensis and Bacillus subtilis based on their morphology, biochemical characteristics and 16S ribosomal DNA gene. Compared to the single culture, the bacterial mixtures showed higher resistance to mercury. Klebsiella pneumoniae and Bacillus toyonensis grew normally when the mercury concentration was 0 ~ 30 mg L−1 and pH 4 ~ 8. Synergistic effects on the remediation of mercury (10 mg L−1) via the bacterial mixtures were observed after 72 h, and 80 ~ 83% remediation efficiency of mercury was recorded. Compared with single-strain cultures (40 ~ 50% remediation efficiency), the bacterial mixtures demonstrated greater resistance and efficiency for mercury remediation. This work proves that bacterial mixtures are useful in the bioremediation of heavy metals in the contaminated environment.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Special Project of soil pollution control of Shanxi Province (Grant Number: 2019003) for their financial support.
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Jing, X., Lu, T., Sun, F. et al. Microbial transformation to remediate mercury pollution: strains isolation and laboratory study. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 3039–3048 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-022-04158-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-022-04158-z