%0 Journal Article
%T Carbon Monoxide as an Electron Donor for the Biological Reduction of Sulphate
%A Sofiya N. Parshina
%A Jan Sipma
%A Anne Meint Henstra
%A Alfons J. M. Stams
%J International Journal of Microbiology
%D 2010
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2010/319527
%X Several strains of Gram-negative and Gram-positive sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are able to use carbon monoxide (CO) as a carbon source and electron donor for biological sulphate reduction. These strains exhibit variable resistance to CO toxicity. The most resistant SRB can grow and use CO as an electron donor at concentrations up to 100%, whereas others are already severely inhibited at CO concentrations as low as 1-2%. Here, the utilization, inhibition characteristics, and enzymology of CO metabolism as well as the current state of genomics of CO-oxidizing SRB are reviewed. Carboxydotrophic sulphate-reducing bacteria can be applied for biological sulphate reduction with synthesis gas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) as an electron donor. 1. Introduction Sulphate reducers are anaerobic microorganisms that are able to use sulphate as a terminal electron acceptor [1]. They are widespread in anoxic habitats [2] and can use numerous substrates as electron donor for growth. These include sugars [3, 4], amino acids [5, 6], hydrogen [7], and one-carbon compounds, such as methanol [8¨C11], carbon monoxide [12¨C14], and methanethiol [15]. Even alkanes [16¨C19], alkenes [20], and short-chain alkanes [21], as well as aniline [22], benzoate, phenol, aromatic hydrocarbons [23¨C25], and phosphite [26] are used as electron donor. Sulphate-reducing bacteria play an important role in biodesulfurization processes. Industries that use sulphuric acid, sulphate-rich feedstocks, or reduced sulphur compounds generate wastewaters rich in sulphate [27]. Sulphate is removed from wastewater by the combined activity of SRB that generate sulphide and the subsequent partial oxidation of sulphide to insoluble elemental sulphur by sulphide oxidizing bacteria [28]. Biotechnological applications of sulphate reduction further include abatement from the flue gas of coal fueled power plants [27] and treatment of sulphate-rich, heavy metal contaminated wastewaters. Heavy metals such as Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Ni, and Fe can be removed from waste streams by precipitation with biogenic sulfide. Because of differences in solubility of products, the metals can be selectively precipitated, which enables their recovery and reuse as demonstrated at full-scale for a zinc smelting plant [29]. If sulphate-rich wastewaters contain no or insufficient amounts of suitable electron and carbon donors for sulphate reduction, external addition becomes a prerequisite. Examples of such wastewaters are waste streams generated in galvanic processes, in the detoxification of metal-contaminated soils, in the
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijmicro/2010/319527/