Find respiratory bacteria with uranium

A newly discovered uranium "respiratory" strain could hold the key to polluting groundwater cleaning methods in areas where US nuclear weapons are being processed.

Respiratory bacteria using uranium

According to Phys, a team of scientists at Rutgers University, the United States discovered the bacterium in the old uranium ore field in Rifle, Colorado, about 320 kilometers west of Denver. This is the first time they have found a bacterium belonging to the common class of iron bacteria (betaproteobacteria) that can breathe uranium.

Newly discovered bacteria can clean up groundwater at old US nuclear mines.(Photo: Phys)

" After this bacterium interacts with uranium compounds in the water, uranium becomes immobile," said Lee Kerkhof, professor of marine and coastal sciences at the Academy of Environmental Science and Ecology Co-Chair. said.

Uranium does not dissolve into groundwater, so it does not poison the pumped drinking water. According to the report published in Plos ONE, when it realized that uranium in the samples taken from Rifle could be toxic to microorganisms as well as humans, the scientists isolated the respiratory microorganisms with uranium in the laboratory. experience.

They gradually added small amounts of dissolved uranium at the appropriate density to the sample where the uranium was locked, the highest concentration of uranium and found this strain of bacteria.

Previously, scientists had witnessed a drop in groundwater uranium density when iron bacteria were active, however, they could not prove that the bacteria directly inhaled with uranium.

While the flower reactions that this newly discovered bacterium makes for uranium are a normal reduction process. They form tiny uranium particles. However, according to Kerkhof, it is not known exactly how this strain of bacteria evolved. Probably because of the ability of the bacteria to transmit genes to each other, they have inherited a gene element that allows them to remove uranium to be able to live on uranium.

The problem of uranium-contaminated groundwater in the United States dates back to the Cold War, when ore mines and mills produced millions of tons of uranium oxide to build nuclear bombs. When the mine was closed in the 1970s, radioactive waste remained there, seeping into the ground and contaminating groundwater. People who drink this polluted water will have liver diseases or cancer.

If this method is successful, it will be considered for application on 9 mines. In addition to the United States, scientists argue that the technology could also be useful in areas of conflict that use many nuclear weapons leading to radioactive contamination like the Middle East.