Abstract
Purified cell walls from Bacillus subtilis were repeatedly suspended in 5 mm CuCl2 and, after removing unbound Cu, were suspended in 1% (v/v) HNO3 to release bound Cu. The walls were then regenerated by washing in H2O. After five cycles, copper binding actually increased slightly, probably due to enhanced exposure of binding sites in the walls. Thus bacterial walls may be used repeatedly for metal removal during bioremediation of heavy metal pollution.
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R.J.C. McLean is with the Department of Biology, Southwest Texas State University, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, TX 78666-4616, USA A.M. Campbell is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada. P.T. Khu is with the Department of Mining Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada. A.T. Persaud, L.E. Bickerton and D. Beauchemin are with the Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada.
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McLean, R.J.C., Campbell, A.M., Khu, P.T. et al. Repeated use of Bacillus subtilis cell walls for copper binding. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 10, 472–474 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00144475
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00144475