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Bioleaching of available silicon from coal tailings using Bacillus mucilaginosus: a sustainable solution for soil improvement

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Abstract

In China, a large amount of soil lack available silicon, which leads to a decrease in crop yield. Furthermore, the solid waste coal tailings contain abundant minerals that are rich in silicon, which have not been fully utilized. In this work, we used Bacillus mucilaginosus as the leaching agent to convert insoluble silicon in coal tailings into available silicon for crop. After single-factor experiments, the optimal leaching conditions with bacterial dosage, coal tailings weight, initial pH, leaching temperature, and shaking speed were obtained. Kinetic analysis showed that the controlling process of the leaching was a chemical reaction. The leaching process was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that bioleaching is a feasible and efficient method to extract silicon from coal tailings, with a maximum leaching amount of 260 mg L−1 after 16 days, which occupied 93% of the total effective silicon. In conclusion, this work demonstrates that bioleaching technology can effectively solve the problem of the environmental utilization of coal tailings by converting them into a soil improver that can provide beneficial nutrients for crop growth.

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Data availability

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 5217040550).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Coal Processing and Efficient Utilization of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, Jiangsu, China

    Qingshan Zhang, Long Liang, Mengjuan Jing & Yaoli Peng

  2. Institute of Geochemistry Chinese Academy of Science, Guiyang, 550081, China

    Xinxin Yan

Authors
  1. Qingshan Zhang
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  2. Long Liang
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  3. Mengjuan Jing
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  4. Xinxin Yan
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  5. Yaoli Peng
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Qingshan Zhang, Long Liang, Mengjuan Jing, and Xinxin Yan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Qingshan Zhang, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yaoli Peng.

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Zhang, ., Liang, L., Jing, M. et al. Bioleaching of available silicon from coal tailings using Bacillus mucilaginosus: a sustainable solution for soil improvement. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 93142–93154 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28921-y

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