Researchers Discover Metal Modification Through Biology – ScienceDaily

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The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria gain nutrients from rocks in Chile’s Atacama Desert has inspired engineers at the University of California, Irvine, to think about new ways the microbes could help humans build colonies on the Moon and Mars.

Researchers in UCI’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Johns Hopkins’ Department of Biology used high-resolution electron microscopy and advanced imaging spectroscopy techniques to gain a precise understanding of how microorganisms modify both naturally occurring metals and synthetic nanoceramics. The key factor, according to the scientists, is that cyanobacteria produce biofilms that dissolve magnetic iron oxide particles within the gypsum rock, thus converting magnetite into oxidized hematite.

The team’s findings, which are the subject of research recently published in the journal Today’s biographical material, can provide a pathway for new biomining methods. The authors also said they see the results as a step toward using microorganisms in large-scale 3D printing or additive manufacturing on a useful scale in civil engineering in extreme environments, such as those on the Moon and Mars.

“Through a biological process that evolved over millions of years, small miners excavate rock, extracting minerals necessary for physiological functions, such as photosynthesis, that enable them to survive,” said corresponding author David Kisailus, professor of materials at UCI. . Science and engineering. “Could humans use a similar biochemical approach to obtain and manipulate minerals that we find valuable? This project has led us down that path.”

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest and most inhospitable places on Earth ChroococcidiopsisCyanobacteria found in gypsum samples collected there by the Johns Hopkins team, said Jocelyn DeRugero, assistant professor of biology at the University of Baltimore, had evolved “the most amazing adaptations to survive in their rocky habitat.”

“Some of these traits include the production of chlorophyll, which absorbs red-hot photons, and the ability to extract water and iron from surrounding minerals,” she added.

Using advanced electron microscopes and spectroscopic instruments, the researchers found evidence of microbes in the gypsum by observing how the minerals within it transformed.

“Cyanobacteria cells enhanced the dissolution of magnetite and the dissolution of iron through the production of abundant extracellular polymeric materials, which lead to the dissolution and oxidation of magnetite to hematite,” DeRugero said. Iron acid production [iron-binding compounds generated by bacteria and fungi] It was enhanced in the presence of magnetite nanoparticles, suggesting their use by cyanobacteria to obtain iron from magnetite. “

Kisailus said the way microorganisms process minerals in their abandoned home got him thinking about our own mining and manufacturing practices.

“When we extract minerals, we often end up using ores that may present challenges for the extraction of precious metals,” he said. “We often need to put these materials through extreme processing to turn them into something of value. This practice can be costly both financially and environmentally.”

Kisailus said he is now considering a biochemical approach using natural or synthetic isotopes of ferrous iron, enzymes and other secretions to process minerals where only a large mechanical crusher currently works. And taking a leap from here, he said there could also be a way to get microorganisms to use similar biochemical capabilities to produce an engineered material on demand in inappropriate locations.

“I call it ‘moon shaping’ rather than terraforming,” Kiselos said. “If you want to build something on the moon, instead of incurring the expense of having people do it, we could have robotic systems 3D print media and then reconfigure microbes into something valuable. This can be done without endangering human life.”

He added that humans do not always need to use Edison’s approaches to learn how to do things.

“This is the main topic of the laboratory of biomimetic and nanostructured materials. Why try to reinvent the wheel when nature has perfected it over hundreds of millions of years?” Kisselos said. “We just have to extract the secrets and blueprints of what nature does and apply or adapt them to what we need.”

This project was funded by the Army Research Office and supported by tools made available by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The research team also included Wei Huang, a postdoctoral scientist in the Kisselos Lab group. Taifeng Wang, Ph.D, who recently graduated from UCI and now works at Intel; and Cesar Pérez Fernandez in the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University.

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