Enrichment and remediation of uranium by microorganisms: A review

Qiuhan Yu and Ouyang Cui*

Uranium is a key raw material for the nuclear energy industry, the generation of nuclear energy is projected to double by 2040 to address the growing energy demands, which makes the uranium supply a matter of energy security. In addition, uranium is a heavy metal with both chemotoxicity and radiotoxicity, which seriously endangers human health and environmental safety. The growth in the utilization of uranium resources boosts the release of uranium into the environment. Therefore, the remediation of uranium contamination and recovery of uranium from a non-conventional approach is highly needed. Microorganism exhibits a high potential for immobilization of uranium. This review summarizes the ability of microorganisms to immobilize uranium from aqueous solutions and wastewater in terms of microbial species, performance, mechanism of enrichment and remediation, and applicable environment.

Keywords:

Published on: Oct 19, 2023 Pages: 20-38

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/ojeb.000037
CrossMark Publons Harvard Library HOLLIS Search IT Semantic Scholar Get Citation Base Search Scilit OAI-PMH ResearchGate Academic Microsoft GrowKudos Universite de Paris UW Libraries SJSU King Library SJSU King Library NUS Library McGill DET KGL BIBLiOTEK JCU Discovery Universidad De Lima WorldCat VU on WorldCat