RESEARCH ARTICLE

Mercury removal and recovery by immobilized Bacillus megaterium MB1

  • Meifang CHIEN ,
  • Ryo NAKAHATA ,
  • Tetsuya ONO ,
  • Keisuke MIYAUCHI ,
  • Ginro ENDO
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  • Faculty of Engineering, Tohoku-Gakuin University, Miyagi 985-8537, Japan

Received date: 06 Nov 2011

Accepted date: 20 Feb 2012

Published date: 05 Jun 2012

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

From several mercury removing microorganisms, we selected Bacillus megaterium MB1, which is non-pathogenic, broad-spectrum mercury resistant, mercuric ion reducing, heat tolerant, and spore-forming, as a useful bacterium for bioremediation of mercury pollution. In this study, mercury removal performance of the immobilized B. megaterium MB1 was investigated to develop safe, efficient and stable catalytic bio-agent for mercury bioremediation. The results showed that the alginate gel immobilized B. megaterium MB1 cells efficiently removed 80% of mercury from the solution containing 10 mg/L mercuric chloride within 24 h. These cells still had high activity of mercury removal even after mercuric ion loading was repeated for nine times. The analysis of mercury contents of the alginate beads with and without immobilized B. megaterium MB1 suggested that a large portion of reduced metallic mercury was trapped in the gel beads. It was concluded that the alginate gel immobilized B. megaterium MB1 cells have potential to remove and recover mercury from mercury-containing water.

Cite this article

Meifang CHIEN , Ryo NAKAHATA , Tetsuya ONO , Keisuke MIYAUCHI , Ginro ENDO . Mercury removal and recovery by immobilized Bacillus megaterium MB1[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2012 , 6(2) : 192 -197 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-012-1284-3

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (Grant No. 21651038).
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