Biomineralization and Biosorption Involving Bacteria: Metal Phosphate Precipitation and Mercury Adsorption Experiments

The research conducted in these chapters focused on the transport and fate of a range of metals in the presence of bacteria. In Chapter 2, I investigated the effects of bacteria on the precipitation of metal phosphates and discovered 2 phenomena, passive cell wall mineralization and the decreased size of precipitated minerals due to the presence of bacteria. In Chapters 3 and 4, I investigated the effects of 2 ligands (chloride in Chapter 3, fulvic acid in Chapter 4) on the adsorption behavior on mercury to bacterial cells. I learned from these studies that the presence of ligands can have a range of effects on the adsorption behavior of mercury to bacterial cells.

In all of my investigations, I used thermodynamic models to calculate stability constants for several metal-bacteria complexes formed in my experiments. These stability constants can be used to better predict the behavior of metals in metal-bacteria-ligand systems, which is potentially beneficial to several applications (e.g. developing effective remediation strategies).