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Suppression of coal dust by microbially induced carbonate precipitation using Staphylococcus succinus

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 26, pages 35968–35977 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Coal dust from open-cast mines is a significant air pollutant; thus, dust particles and toxins contained in the dust are a severe threat to human health and ecosystems. Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) is a low-cost and environmentally friendly way to suppress coal dust. With high urease activity and tolerance to coal dust, a bacterial strain, Staphylococcus succinus J3, was isolated from soil in a mine area. Thus, in dust suppression experiments, we used coal dust dominated by fine granule particles (100–250 μm) from an open-cast mine. Consequently, four factors were identified: initial bacterial biomass, calcium concentration, urea concentration, and spraying frequency; we investigated their effects on MICP as a dust suppression technique using one-factor-at-a-time experiments. Maximum threshold broken wind speed (45.5 m s−1) and pressure (912 kPa) were obtained under the following condition: OD600 = 0.7, 40 mmol calcium, 6% (w/w) urea in the bonding solution which was sprayed five times in 35 days. Pearson correlation analysis described that urea concentration and spraying frequency both significantly positive correlations with the threshold broken wind speed and pressure via Pearson analysis. When the coal dust suppression process was complete, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy showed that a solidified layer of calcareous precipitate had formed on the surface of the dust. These results indicate that Staphylococcus succinus J3 has considerable potential for use in MICP as a coal dust suppression technique.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Key Research and Development Plan of XinJiang Uygur Autonomous Region (2016B03042-2) and granted from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant no: 2017478).

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Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Desert & Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China

    Wenjuan Song & Xiangliang Pan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wenjuan Song & Yuyi Yang

  3. Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yuyi Yang

  4. Chinese People’s Armed Police Golden Eighth Detachment, Urumqi, 830026, China

    Ran Qi

  5. School of Life Science, Shihezi University, Shihezi, 832002, China

    Junpeng Li

  6. Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology for Industrial Pollution Control of Zhejiang Province, College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, China

    Xiangliang Pan

Authors
  1. Wenjuan Song
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  2. Yuyi Yang
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  3. Ran Qi
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  4. Junpeng Li
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Correspondence to Wenjuan Song or Xiangliang Pan.

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Song, W., Yang, Y., Qi, R. et al. Suppression of coal dust by microbially induced carbonate precipitation using Staphylococcus succinus . Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 35968–35977 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06488-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06488-x

Keywords

  • coal dust
  • Staphylococcus succinus
  • Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP)
  • Threshold broken wind speed
  • Threshold broken pressure
  • Suppression