The Role of Algae and Bacteria from Berkeley Pit Lake in Metal Sorption Processes
EMSL Project ID
3310
Abstract
The Berkeley Pit lake system, located in Butte, Montana is an abandoned open-pit mine and part of the largest Superfund site in the United States. Flooding with underground water associated with acid rock drainage turned the pit into a low pH (2.7) and high metal concentration lake.This study is conducted to evaluate the distribution of the metal sorption capacity between algae and the bacteria isolated from Berkeley Pit.
Previous studies on the Berkeley Pit have demonstrated the sorption/precipitation potential of 4 species of algae by removing metal ions from Pit water. However, the population of algae was not pure, but associated with populations of bacteria so the metal removal results were obtained for a mixture of bacterial and algal populations.
This study proposes to evaluate whether the sorption/precipitation of metals is due to the algae, bacteria or the extra cellular compounds. Furthermore, research at the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory is directed towards a more detailed approach of the metals sorption process at a cellular and molecular level within algal and bacterial cells. The objective is to explain the allocation of heavy metals either on the membrane of the cell by adsorption or within the cell by absorption.
First, axenic (pure) populations of the four species of algae (Chromulina freiburgensis Dofl., Chlorella vulgaris Beijerinck, Chlorella ellipsoidea Gernek, Chlamydomonas acidophila Negoro) will be cultured. Algae will also be cultured together with the bacteria that naturally grow with these algae. When algae reach a density of 10 exp 7 cells per milliliter, the two types of populations (pure and with bacteria) will be transferred to filtered Berkeley Pit water.
Samples from the Berkeley Pit water will be taken before inoculation, one hour after inoculation, 4, 6, 12, 18, 24, 48 hours after inoculation. Samples will be examined for the concentration of heavy metals using an Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometer. Data from this sample analysis will be used to determine the ability of each of the two populations to sequester metals.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2003-03-17
End Date
2004-03-23
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator