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Use of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria for assessment of chromium-contaminated soil

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Abstract

In recent years, biological toxicity tests have been conducted for soil assessment of environmental pollutants to evaluate the environmental risk due to heavy metals. In this study, batch tests were conducted with soils contaminated with hexavalent chromium (Cr6+) using sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB). For control soils (without Cr6+), the electrical conductivity (EC) increased linearly over time in all samples, indicating that no toxic substances were present in the soil. The initial EC varied between 6 and 7.8 mS/cm, and the final EC varied between 22 and 27 mS/cm after incubation for 65 h. For batch tests performed using Cr6+-contaminated soil, the EC increased slightly or remained stable in all the test samples after a few hours. Thus, the presence of toxic substance Cr6+ inhibited the SOB, which leads to no sulfuric acid formation and therefore, no change in EC. These results indicated that SOB can be employed as a test microorganism to assess the quality of heavy metal-contaminated soils.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2012R1A2041985) and the Institute of Environmental Research at Kangwon National University.

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  1. Department of Biological Environment, Kangwon National University, Gangwon-do, Chuncheon-si, 200-701, South Korea

    Anup Gurung & Sang-Eun Oh

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  1. Anup Gurung
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  2. Sang-Eun Oh
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Correspondence to Sang-Eun Oh.

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Gurung, A., Oh, SE. Use of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria for assessment of chromium-contaminated soil. Environ Earth Sci 70, 139–143 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-012-2110-4

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