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Microbial depassivation of Fe(0) for contaminant removal under semi-aerobic conditions

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

Increasing evidence has shown that the reaction of zero-valent iron [Fe(0)] by oxygen can produce strong oxidants and rapidly oxidize the tractable contaminants. However, Fe(0) is vulnerable to passivation in the presence of oxygen, which significantly decreases its surface reactivity towards the removal of refractory contaminants. Microorganisms capable of reducing ferric iron in the presence of oxygen are expected to overcome the limitation of Fe(0) passivation. However, no studies to date have shown that microorganisms are able to depassivate Fe(0) for the removal of recalcitrant compounds in the presence of oxygen. In this study, we demonstrated that the carotenoid-producing Sphingobium hydrophobicum C1 was able to significantly enhance the removal of deca-brominated diphenyl ether by depassivating Fe(0) and subsequently removing the newly formed metabolites under semi-aerobic conditions (> 4 mg/L oxygen). S. hydrophobicum C1 effectively depassivated Fe(0) and regenerated its reactivity by reducing ferric iron under semi-aerobic conditions. Some unique characteristics of S. hydrophobicum C1, including the presence of membrane-integrated carotenoids and certain cell proteins, were essential for the ferric iron reduction of S. hydrophobicum C1 in the presence of oxygen. Our results may provide new insights into the bioremediation of persistent pollutants and will contribute to future studies to enhance our understanding of microbial iron reduction.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Yinghua Cen for helpful suggestions to improve this work.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21677042), Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou (2014J2200076), International Cooperation Program of Science and Technology Foundation of Guangdong, China (2013B050800025), the National Science Foundation for Excellent Young Scholars of China (51422803), Special Foundation for the Science and Technology Innovation Leaders of Guangdong Province (2014TX01Z038), Guangdong Province Special Fund for Application Research (2015B020235011), Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2014A030308019), and Science and Technology Project of Guangdong Province, China (2016B070701017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Culture Collection and Application, Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, 100 Central Xianlie Road, 510070, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Xingjuan Chen, Da Song, Jingjing Xu, Guoping Sun & Meiying Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Guangzhou, 510070, China

    Xingjuan Chen, Da Song, Jingjing Xu, Guoping Sun & Meiying Xu

  3. Guangdong Open Laboratory of Applied Microbiology, Guangzhou, 510070, China

    Xingjuan Chen, Da Song, Jingjing Xu, Guoping Sun & Meiying Xu

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  1. Xingjuan Chen
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  2. Da Song
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  3. Jingjing Xu
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  4. Guoping Sun
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Correspondence to Meiying Xu.

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Chen, X., Song, D., Xu, J. et al. Microbial depassivation of Fe(0) for contaminant removal under semi-aerobic conditions. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 101, 8595–8605 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8549-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8549-1

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