Psychrotolerant bacteria play a particularly important role in the remediation of heavy metal in contamination sites at low temperatures. In the current study, a psychrotolerant Ni-resistant bacterial strain, identified as Bacillus cereus D2, was isolated from a nickel mining area in China. The isolated strain could produce a large amount of urease enzyme (194.6 U/mL), grow well in harsh environmental conditions at a temperature of 10 °C, and at a Ni (II) concentration up to 400 mg/L. Also, under the low temperature (10 °C), this strain has been revealed to induce carbonate precipitation (Ni2CO3(OH)2·H2O) through biomineralization for removing the high efficiency of Ni ions (73.47%) from the culture solution. Furthermore, strain D2 could immobilize the DTPA-Ni in contaminated soil under the case of the laboratory condition at 10 °C. These data support that the psychrotolerant bacterial strain D2 may play an important role in remediation technology by eliminating Ni ions from the contaminated soil at low temperatures.
Keywords: Bacillus cereus D2; Biomineralization; Carbonate precipitation; Low temperature; Ni remediation; Psychrotolerant Ni-resistant bacteria.
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