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Bacteria Could Help Clean Groundwater Contaminated by Uranium Ore Processing, Rutgers Study Finds
http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/bacteria-could-help-clean-groundwater-contaminated-uranium-ore-processing-rutgers-study-finds/20150614[font face=Serif][font size=5]Bacteria Could Help Clean Groundwater Contaminated by Uranium Ore Processing, Rutgers Study Finds[/font]
[font size=4]Scientists have discovered a bacterium in soil at an ore mill in Colorado that essentially breathes uranium and renders it immobile[/font]
Monday, June 15, 2015
By Carl Blesch
[font size=3]A strain of bacteria that “breathes” uranium may hold the key to cleaning up polluted groundwater at sites where uranium ore was processed to make nuclear weapons.
A team of Rutgers University scientists and collaborators discovered the bacteria in soil at an old uranium ore mill in Rifle, Colorado, almost 200 miles west of Denver. The site is one of nine such mills in Colorado used during the heyday of nuclear weapons production.
The research is part of a U.S. Department of Energy program to see if microorganisms can lock up uranium that leached into the soil years ago and now makes well water in the area unsafe to drink.
The team’s discovery, published in the April 13, 2015 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) One, is the first known instance where scientists have found a bacterium from a common class known as betaproteobacteria that breathes uranium. This bacterium can breathe either oxygen or uranium to drive the chemical reactions that provide life-giving energy.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]Scientists have discovered a bacterium in soil at an ore mill in Colorado that essentially breathes uranium and renders it immobile[/font]
Monday, June 15, 2015
By Carl Blesch
[font size=3]A strain of bacteria that “breathes” uranium may hold the key to cleaning up polluted groundwater at sites where uranium ore was processed to make nuclear weapons.
A team of Rutgers University scientists and collaborators discovered the bacteria in soil at an old uranium ore mill in Rifle, Colorado, almost 200 miles west of Denver. The site is one of nine such mills in Colorado used during the heyday of nuclear weapons production.
The research is part of a U.S. Department of Energy program to see if microorganisms can lock up uranium that leached into the soil years ago and now makes well water in the area unsafe to drink.
The team’s discovery, published in the April 13, 2015 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) One, is the first known instance where scientists have found a bacterium from a common class known as betaproteobacteria that breathes uranium. This bacterium can breathe either oxygen or uranium to drive the chemical reactions that provide life-giving energy.
…[/font][/font]
