biotech

Biomineralization of Gold By Bacteria

Filed in archive Energy, Environment and Ecology , Microbiology on August 3, 2006

Biomineralization of Gold By Bacteria
Using DNA profiling on gold grains collected from two gold mines in Australia, scientists have been able to single out a bacteria, Ralstonia metallidurans, that is capable of precipitating dissolved gold.
"By placing a culture of the R. metallidurans in the presence of dissolved gold, which is highly toxic to microorgansims, I observed active gold precipitation.

"A unique attribute of R. metallidurans is that it is able to survive in concentrations of gold that would kill most other micro-organisms."

As the scientists say, this present great potential in gold mining using bio-precipitation as a method to retirieve gold from solution. Their discoveries were published last month in Science.

[Photo: Bacterioform-gold1: Coloured scanning electron image of bacterioform gold on a gold grain from the Hit or Miss Mine in northern Queensland. courtesy of CSIRO]


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Tags: gold  mining  biotech  bacteria  biomineralization  biomineralization+gold  gold+bacteria  life+sciences 

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