In the Ore Mountains, groundwater contaminated with the toxic heavy metal uranium still sits in abandoned uranium mines. Uranium in drinking water is dangerous to humans. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have now made a surprising discovery. Certain bacteria can convert dissolved uranium into a stable chemical compound. In the long term, this could help reduce the potential risk posed by contaminated sites.
Uranium ends up in the cell membrane
For their study, the researchers used mine water from a flooded uranium mine operated by Wismut GmbH in the Ore Mountains, which is about 2,000 meters deep. In the laboratory, they mixed the water with glycerin, a substance found in plant and animal fats. The bacteria in the water used the glycerin as a food source, with remarkable results.
“After 130 days, only about five percent of the uranium dissolved in the water remained in the samples,” says Dr. Antonio M. Newman-Portela, a former doctoral student at the HZDR and the University of Granada in Spain. The researchers suspected that the bacteria had incorporated the uranium into their cell membranes. Indeed, they detected the heavy metal there.
