Recent work published in PLOS ONE has shown that a Serratia species isolated from Sellafield sediment was able to precipitate uranium from solution using a variety of different mechanisms. The bacterium was able to metabolise glycerol phosphate, which lead to the precipitation of U(VI) as uranyl(VI) phosphate minerals of the autunite group. This occurred under both anaerobic and fermentative conditions. When the Serratia species was supplemented with glycerol under phosphate-limited non-growth conditions, it caused U(VI) to be removed from solution via reduction to U(IV) as nanocrystalline uraninite. This work has implications for the bioremediation of uranium contaminated groundwater at nuclear sites.
Uranium biominerals precipitated by a
Serratia environmental isolate. Different experimental set ups were used to produce the autunite and uraninite mineral phases
Uranium biominerals precipitated by an environmental isolate of Serratia under anaerobic conditions. Newsome L, Morris K, Lloyd J R, 2015. PLOS ONE 10 (7): e0132392. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132392
