Neutralization and Improvement of Bauxite Residue by Saline-Alkali Tolerant Bacteria

Lv Lv; Kunyan Qiu; Shiji Ge; Zhiqiang Jiao; Chenyang Gao; Haiguang Fu; Rongkui Su; Zhongkai Liu; Yulong Wang; Yangyang Wang

doi:10.3390/ijerph191811590

Neutralization and Improvement of Bauxite Residue by Saline-Alkali Tolerant Bacteria

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 14;19(18):11590. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191811590.

Authors

Lv Lv^{1

2

3}, Kunyan Qiu⁴, Shiji Ge³, Zhiqiang Jiao³, Chenyang Gao³, Haiguang Fu³, Rongkui Su⁵, Zhongkai Liu⁶, Yulong Wang^{1

2}, Yangyang Wang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ National Demonstration Center for Environmental and Planning, College of Geography and Environmental Science, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China.
² Key Laboratory of Geospatial Technology for the Middle and Lower Yellow River Regions, Henan University, Ministry of Education, Kaifeng 475004, China.
³ Henan Engineering Research Center for Control & Remediation of Soil Heavy Metal Pollution, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China.
⁴ Henan Key Laboratory for Monitoring and Remediation in Heavy Metal Polluted Soil, Jiyuan 459000, China.
⁵ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China.
⁶ Zhengzhou Non-Ferrous Metals Research Institute Co., Ltd. of CHALCO, Zhengzhou 450041, China.

Abstract

The high salt-alkalinity of bauxite residue (BR) hinders plant growth and revegetation of bauxite residue disposal areas (BRDA), which cause serious potential environmental and ecological risks. Bioneutralization is a promising method for improving the properties of BR and plant colonization. In the present study, a strong saline-alkali tolerant bacteria (ZH-1) was isolated from aged BR and identified as Bacillus sp. The medium of ZH-1 was optimized by orthogonal tests, and ZH-1 could decrease the medium pH from 11.8 to 6.01 (agitated culture) and 6.48 (static culture) by secretion of citric acid, oxalic acid and tartaric acid. With the inoculation of ZH-1, the pH of BR decreased from 11.6 to 8.76, and the water-soluble salt in BR increased by 68.11%. ZH-1 also changed the aggregate size distribution of BR, the mechanical-stable aggregates and water-stable aggregates increased by 18.76% and 10.83%, respectively. At the same time, the stability of the aggregates obviously increased and the destruction rate decreased from 94.37% to 73.46%. In addition, the microbial biomass carbon increased from 425 to 2794 mg/kg with the inoculation of ZH-1. Bacterial community analysis revealed that Clostridia, Bacilli, Gammaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria were the main classes in the naturalized BR, and the inoculation of ZH-1 increased the diversity of bacteria in the BR. Overall, ZH-1 has great potential for neutralization and improvement the properties of BR and may be greatly beneficial for the revegetation of BRDA.

Keywords: Bacillus sp.; bacteria; bauxite residue; improvement; neutralization.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Alkalies*
Aluminum Oxide* / chemistry
Bacteria
Carbon
Oxalic Acid
Plants
Soil / chemistry
Water

Substances

Alkalies
Soil
Water
Carbon
Oxalic Acid
Aluminum Oxide

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Development Project of Henan Province China (212102310503, 212102310067); the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (2020M682284); the Open Funding Project of National Key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering (SYFD062007, 6142222211001); and the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province China (202300410088).