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Biomining
Biomining is the technique of extracting metals from ores and other solid materials typically using prokaryotes, fungi or plants (phytoextraction also known as phytomining or biomining). These organisms secrete different organic compounds that chelate metals from the environment and bring it back to the cell where they are typically used to coordinate electrons. It was discovered in the mid 1900s that microorganisms use metals in the cell. Some microbes can use stable metals such as iron, copper, zinc, and gold as well as unstable atoms such as uranium and thorium. Large chemostats of microbes can be grown to leach metals from their media. These vats of culture can then be transformed into many marketable metal compounds. Biomining is an environmentally friendly technique compared to typical mining. Mining releases many pollutants while the only chemicals released from biomining is any metabolites or gasses that the bacteria secrete. The same concept can be used for bioremediatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phytoextraction
Phytoextraction is a subprocess of phytoremediation in which plants remove dangerous elements or compounds from soil or water, most usually heavy metals, metals that have a high density and may be toxic to organisms even at relatively low concentrations. The heavy metals that plants extract are toxic to the plants as well, and the plants used for phytoextraction are known hyperaccumulators that sequester extremely large amounts of heavy metals in their tissues. Phytoextraction can also be performed by plants that uptake lower levels of pollutants, but due to their high growth rate and biomass production, may remove a considerable amount of contaminants from the soil. Heavy metals and biological systems Heavy metals can be a major problem for any biological organism as they may be reactive with a number of chemicals essential to biological processes. They can also break apart other molecules into even more reactive species (such as reactive oxygen species), which also disrupt biolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acidithiobacillus Ferrooxidans
''Acidithiobacillus'' is a genus of the ''Acidithiobacillia'' in the "Pseudomonadota". The genus includes acidophilic organisms capable of iron and/or sulfur oxidation. Like all ''"Pseudomonadota"'', ''Acidithiobacillus'' spp. are Gram-negative. They are also important generators of acid mine drainage, which is a major environmental problem around the world in mining. Genus ''Acidithiobacillus'' ''Acidithiobacillus'' are acidophilic obligate autotrophs (''Acidithiobacillus caldus'' can also grow mixotrophically) that use elementary sulfur, tetrathionate and ferrous iron as electron donors. They assimilate carbon from carbon dioxide using the transaldolase variant of the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. The genus comprises motile, rod-shaped cells that can be isolated from low pH environments including low pH microenvironments on otherwise neutral mineral grains. Phylogeny The order Acidithiobacillales (i.e. ''Thermithiobacillus'') were formerly members of the ''Gammaproteobacteri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acidithiobacillus
''Acidithiobacillus'' is a genus of the ''Acidithiobacillia'' in the " Pseudomonadota". The genus includes acidophilic organisms capable of iron and/or sulfur oxidation. Like all ''"Pseudomonadota"'', ''Acidithiobacillus'' spp. are Gram-negative. They are also important generators of acid mine drainage, which is a major environmental problem around the world in mining. Genus ''Acidithiobacillus'' ''Acidithiobacillus'' are acidophilic obligate autotrophs (''Acidithiobacillus caldus'' can also grow mixotrophically) that use elementary sulfur, tetrathionate and ferrous iron as electron donors. They assimilate carbon from carbon dioxide using the transaldolase variant of the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. The genus comprises motile, rod-shaped cells that can be isolated from low pH environments including low pH microenvironments on otherwise neutral mineral grains. Phylogeny The order Acidithiobacillales (i.e. ''Thermithiobacillus'') were formerly members of the ''Gammaproteobacter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electron Shell 092 Uranium
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, . Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavelength ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the seventh most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 States of Brazil, states and the Federal District (Brazil), Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese language, Portuguese as an List of territorial entities where Portuguese is an official language, official language and the only one in the Americas; one of the most Multiculturalism, multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass Immigration to Brazil, immigration from around the world; and the most populous Catholic Church by country, Roman Catholic-majority country. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a Coastline of Brazi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dissolution (chemistry)
Solvation (or dissolution) describes the interaction of a solvent with dissolved molecules. Both ionized and uncharged molecules interact strongly with a solvent, and the strength and nature of this interaction influence many properties of the solute, including solubility, reactivity, and color, as well as influencing the properties of the solvent such as its viscosity and density. If the attractive forces between the solvent and solute particles are greater than the attractive forces holding the solute particles together, the solvent particles pull the solute particles apart and surround them. The surrounded solute particles then move away from the solid solute and out into the solution. Ions are surrounded by a concentric shell of solvent. Solvation is the process of reorganizing solvent and solute molecules into solvation complexes and involves bond formation, hydrogen bonding, and van der Waals forces. Solvation of a solute by water is called hydration. Solubility of solid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermophilic
A thermophile is an organism—a type of extremophile—that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between . Many thermophiles are archaea, though they can be bacteria or fungi. Thermophilic eubacteria are suggested to have been among the earliest bacteria. Thermophiles are found in various geothermally heated regions of the Earth, such as hot springs like those in Yellowstone National Park (see image) and deep sea hydrothermal vents, as well as decaying plant matter, such as peat bogs and compost. Thermophiles can survive at high temperatures, whereas other bacteria or archaea would be damaged and sometimes killed if exposed to the same temperatures. The enzymes in thermophiles function at high temperatures. Some of these enzymes are used in molecular biology, for example the ''Taq'' polymerase used in PCR. "Thermophile" is derived from the el, θερμότητα (''thermotita''), meaning heat, and el, φίλια (''philia''), love. Classification Thermophiles can be c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In Situ
''In situ'' (; often not italicized in English) is a Latin phrase that translates literally to "on site" or "in position." It can mean "locally", "on site", "on the premises", or "in place" to describe where an event takes place and is used in many different contexts. For example, in fields such as physics, geology, chemistry, or biology, ''in situ'' may describe the way a measurement is taken, that is, in the same place the phenomenon is occurring without isolating it from other systems or altering the original conditions of the test. The opposite of ''in situ'' is ''ex situ''. Aerospace In the aerospace industry, equipment on-board aircraft must be tested ''in situ'', or in place, to confirm everything functions properly as a system. Individually, each piece may work but interference from nearby equipment may create unanticipated problems. Special test equipment is available for this ''in situ'' testing. It can also refer to repairs made to the aircraft structure or flight con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlies an ore or mineral body and is displaced during mining without being processed. The extraction of minerals from ore can be done two ways: placer mining, which uses water and gravity to concentrate the valuable minerals, or hard rock mining, which pulverizes the rock containing the ore and then relies on chemical reactions to concentrate the sought-after material. In the latter, the extraction of minerals from ore requires comminution, i.e., grinding the ore into fine particles to facilitate extraction of the target element(s). Because of this comminution, tailings consist of a slurry of fine particles, ranging from the size of a grain of sand to a few micrometres. Mine tailings are usually produced from the mill in slurry form, which i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrobaculum Islandicum
''Pyrobaculum'' is a genus of the Thermoproteaceae. Description and significance As its Latin name ''Pyrobaculum'' (the "fire stick") suggests, the archaeon is rod-shaped and isolated from locations with high temperatures. It is Gram-negative and its cells are surrounded by an S-layer of protein subunits. ''P. aerophilum'' is a hyperthermophilic and metabolically versatile organism. Different from other hyperthermophiles, it can live in the presence of oxygen and grows efficiently in microaerobic conditions. ''Pyrobaculum yellowstonensis'' strain WP30 was obtained from an elemental sulfur sediment (Joseph's Coat Hot Spring CHS 80 °C, pH 6.1, 135 μM As) in Yellowstone National Park (YNP), USA and is a chemoorganoheterotroph and requires elemental sulfur and/or arsenate as an electron acceptor. Growth in the presence of elemental sulfur and arsenate resulted in the formation of thioarsenates and polysulfides. The complete genome of this organism was sequenced (1.99 Mb, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrococcus Furiosus
''Pyrococcus furiosus'' is a heterotrophic, strictly anaerobic, extremophilic, model species of archaea. It is classified as a hyperthermophile because it thrives best under extremely high temperatures, and is notable for having an optimum growth temperature of 100 °C (a temperature that would destroy most living organisms). ''P. furiosus'' belongs to the '' Pyrococcus'' genus, most commonly found in extreme environmental conditions of hydrothermal vents. It is one of the few prokaryotic organisms that has enzymes containing tungsten, an element rarely found in biological molecules. ''Pyrococcus furiosus'' has many potential industrial applications, owing to its unique thermostable properties. ''P. furiosus'' is used in the process of DNA amplification by way of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) because of its proofreading activity. Utilizing ''P. furiosus'' in PCR DNA amplification instead of the traditionally used ''Taq'' DNA polymerase allows for a significantly more accura ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaea
Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this term has fallen out of use. Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from the other two domains, Bacteria and Eukaryota. Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phyla. Classification is difficult because most have not been isolated in a laboratory and have been detected only by their gene sequences in environmental samples. Archaea and bacteria are generally similar in size and shape, although a few archaea have very different shapes, such as the flat, square cells of ''Haloquadratum walsbyi''. Despite this morphological similarity to bacteria, archaea possess genes and several metabolic pathways that are more closely related to those of eukaryotes, notably for the enzymes involved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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