Biomineralization based remediation of cadmium and nickel contaminated wastewater by ureolytic bacteria isolated from barn horses soil

Abstract

Abstract Environmental contamination by toxic heavy metals such as cadmium and nickel is a serious problem. Metal carbonate precipitation has been suggested based on urea decomposition for use in wastewater and soil remediation applications. Therefore, Cd(II) and Ni(II) removal was examined from an environmental viewpoint. In this work, biomineralization of cadmium and nickel in aqueous solutions by six urease-producing bacterial strains isolated from barn horse’s soil samples has been investigated based on microbially induced precipitation (MIP). The enzyme urease produced by these bacteria can hydrolyze urea to carbonate ions leads to increase pH of the wastewater which results in mineralization of the heavy metal ions and their final conversion to metal carbonates precipitates. Only two bacterial strains have been adopted depending on their ability to tolerate high concentrations of toxic metal ions. Bioprecipitation of Cd(II) and Ni(II) was assessed by consideration some factors that affecting on metal bioprecipitation process. These factors include metal toxicity to the bacteria (in term of initial metal concentration) and treatment time. The bioprecipitates were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The selected bacterial isolates demonstrated high endurance with toxic heavy metals and therefore, high Cd(II) and Ni(II) removal rates, ranging from 96% for cadmium to 89% for nickel following incubation for 48 h and at 500 mg/L initial concentration of each Cd(II) and Ni(II). Furthermore, coprecipitation of Cd(II) and Ni(II) with calcite precipitation has been also performed and the results demonstrated that this technique can be beneficial for Cd(II) and Ni(II) biosequestration.