RD Froh¹, JR Froh¹, N Consolazio², E Calderon-Ortiz³ and Alex Krichevsky³*

¹Commercial Liability Partners, East Medical and Professional Center, Carr-3, Km 19.9, Canovanas, PR 00729, PA 15106, United States

*Corresponding Author: Alex Krichevsky, Phoenix Environmental Research, 611 Calle Monserrate, San Juan, PR 00907, United States.

Received: May 02, 2022; Published: May 30, 2022

Abstract

Elevated levels of sulfates in soil and groundwater can pose an environmental challenge. Many locations in the world have elevated sulfates concentration as a result of human activity or natural processes, such as presence of certain naturally occurring minerals and soil types. While at high concentrations sulfates are not toxic per se, they can cause unappealing aesthetic effects in drinking water as well as to induce laxative effects in humans and animals. In this work we demonstrate an environmentally friendly technology for remediation of sulfate contamination from soil and groundwater using food-grade organic materials and naturally occurring sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB). Our results demonstrate essential elimination of sulfates from contaminated samples using low molecular weight organic compounds. In one set of experiments, a combination of sodium lactate and sodium acetate caused reduction of >90% in sulfates concentrations in two month, with final recorded concentration being below naturally occurring sulfate levels. In another experiment, we used a combination of ethanol and butanol to treat contaminated soil and groundwater, resulting in sulfate levels reductions >98% within two months. In addition, a highly unexpected observation has been made. While widely accepted view of sulfate remediation suggests that it should decrease the concentration of soluble metal, our results demonstrated a surprising opposite effect where sulfate remediation has lead to increases in soluble metals concentrations. We further demonstrate a successful use of oxidizers to reduce concentrations of these metals to their original background levels.

Keywords: Sulfate Remediation; Sulfate Reducing Bacteria; Groundwater; Metals Solubility; Biotechnology of Bioremediation

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Citation

Citation: Alex Krichevsky., et al. “In-situ Remediation of Sulfate Contamination Using Low Molecular Weight Organic Compounds". Acta Scientific Microbiology 5.6 (2022): 82-90.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Alex Krichevsky., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.