Selecting a Microorganism Able to Bioabsorb Aluminum from Water Systems

Arsenic is well known for its dangerous toxic features it brings to humans and the environment. But, it was not until the late 1980’s did scientists and public health officials realized that even at low doses of ingestion, arsenic is very dangerous and can cause serious health effects (Bolt, 2013). Till this day arsenic continues to be a huge public health issue, not only in parts of the United States but in developing countries worldwide (Bolt, 2013). The main trend that researchers have been focusing on is the amount of arsenic that is contaminating drinking water. Arsenic has been known to be a health issue in water for many years, but it was not until the 1980’s and later that the government and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started to really crack down on monitoring it (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry [ATSDR] , 2010). Before 2001 the legal amount of arsenic that was allowed in drinking water was 50 parts per billion (ppb), but since then public health officials and the government realized that this amount of arsenic in the water was making people sick (ATSDR, 2010). So on January 22, 2001, the EPA adopted a new standard of 10 ppb of arsenic is drinking water (ATSDR, 2010). This level has been tested to be the safest allowable amount of arsenic in drinking water to be ingested by humans. To this day parts of the world and about 2% of the United States are still having issues with keeping the

Copper commonly occurs as a pollutant in surface fresh waters and it can be extremely toxic to fish , and so its removal is often necessary . There are several methods that exist in the actuality, such as adsorption on activated

We need to as a society to have the desire to learn more about the process of aging and the effects that different factors can have on it. One such factor is perhaps aluminum.

During rain events, a combination of contaminants from roadways, parking lots, manufacturing facilities and industrial sites enter storm drains [2]. This runoff is a major contributor to oil contamination in public water domains and if left untreated, it leads to greater pollution of our oceans, lakes, and rivers. Runoff can also contain heavy metals, such as potassium (K + ) , zinc (Zn 2+ ), lead (Pb 2+ ), copper (Cu 2+ ), and chromium (Cr 3+ ), all of which in large quantities are extremely toxic to biological environments [3]. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Clean Water Act (CWA) 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 122 indicates that facilities are required to obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems

Additionally, it has been proven that when ingested; arsenic can lead to invasive squamous cell carcinoma, Bowen illness, basal cell skin carcinoma, and liver, kidney, lung, and bladder

Half of the world's top ten worst pollution problems are mining related. This report will investigate the extraction processes of high demand metals, such as zinc, iron and aluminium, and the energy demands, chemical processes and costs of each metal. It will also discuss which metal is the most environmentally healthy, and find possible alternative extraction techniques.

Inorganic arsenic, which is often metabolised in humans into toxic methylated arsenicals, is known to be a potential carcinogen that causes tumours of the lungs, skin, urinary bladder, and other non-cancer effects (Radosavljevic & Jakovljevic, 2008). Arsenic is a significant contaminant and its organic and inorganic occurrence in the environment results from both natural and anthropogenic activities. Humans are mainly exposed to the organic forms - arsenite, AsO33-, and arsenate, AsO43-. Large populations in North and South America, as well as Millions more in India, Bangladesh, , and China are exposed high concentrations of organic form of arsenic through drinking water from geogenic sources (Kumar, 2010). Even as some areas experience

When aluminum accumulates in the body, it can lead to great number of diseases ranging from brain degeneration to skeletal deformities and that is the main cause for alarm. It is reported that aluminum salts can be absorbed by the gut and concentrated in various human tissues including bone, parathyroid, and brain. High concentrations of aluminum have been detected in brain tissues of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Various reports have suggested that high aluminum intakes may be harmful to some patients with bone diseases or renal impairments.

Chronic cadmium poisoning can result in nephrotoxicity, osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, testicular necrosis, prostatic and testicular cancers, renal failure and neurodegenerative conditions (Yu et al., 2007). Moreover, it was reported that spermatogenesis is disturbed by free radical toxicity (Aruldhas et al., 2005) . It depletes many essential metal antioxidants including selenium in the body (Sato and Takizawa, 1982). Apparently, its exposure results in decreases of glutathione (GSH) levels which causes an increase in reactive oxygen species leading to increase in lipid peroxidation, change intercellular stability, damage deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), membranes and consequently inducing cell death (Stohs et al., 2000). The metal accumulates in human body affecting negatively several organs: liver, kidney, lungs, bones, placenta, brain and central nervous system (Castro-González and Méndez-Armenta, 2008). Therefore, the maximum concentration limit for cadmium (II) ions in drinking water must be strictly regulated. The World Health Organization (WHO), set a maximum guideline concentration of 0.003 mg/L for cadmium (II) in drinking water (WHO, 2008). Hence, there is great interest regarding the removal of cadmium from wastewater streams.

Wastewater treatment systems are very important to providing clean, drinkable water to its surrounding societies. These systems also help in the removal of contaminants in wastewater from household sewage, runoff, domestic, commercial and institutional units. Processes include physical, chemical and biological manipulation of contaminants to neutralize their effects on the human body for consumption. There are three main types of treatment, primary, secondary and tertiary, all of which have separate units and processes that flow in an organized manner to ultimately end up with recycled potable water.

Arsenic contamination of groundwater has always been a major form of groundwater pollution which is mainly due to naturally occurring high concentrations of arsenic in the deeper levels of groundwater. Countries like Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Taiwan, mainland China, USA and around 60 more are affected by the arsenic poisoning of drinking water which poses a serious life threat to the lives of around 140 million people. Arsenic (At. No. 33) is known to be a dangerous toxin that can take lives if the intake is in large amts. Also it is carcinogenic causing cancer of bladder, skin, lungs, kidney etc. Water contaminated by arsenic typically contains arsenous acid and arsenic acid and their derivatives like As (III) and As (V). Arsenic acid tends to exist as the ions [HAsO4]2 and [H2AsO4]- . Arsenic Pentoxide is the inorganic compound having formula As2O5, which is highly unstable and more commonly found as As (III). Mainly these

The pre-treatment step is broken down into two main features: oxidation and chlorination. Oxidation mainly serves to remove the inorganic contaminants from the water. For example, heavier metals such as Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), and Lead (Pb). Oxidation involves the transfer of electrons between an oxidizing agent (commonly MnO4- in water treatment) and the atom or molecule desired (the inorganic metals). The oxidizing agent can accept electrons

With the fast advancement of enterprises, water asset shortage, populace development, contamination of surface and groundwater by releasing poisonous wastewater and ensuing maladies may raise the need of reusing and treatment of wastewater. The expelling of poisonous overwhelming metal particles from sewage, particularly in modern and mining waste effluents, has been generally examined as of late. Substantial metals wastewaters are specifically or in a roundabout way released into the earth progressively, particularly in creating nations. Dissimilar to natural contaminants, substantial metals are not biodegradable and have a tendency to aggregate in living life forms and numerous overwhelming metal particles are known to be poisonous or

Water purification is the process of removing undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants, suspended solids and gases from contaminated water. The goal is to produce water fit for a specific purpose. Most water is purified for human consumption (drinking water), but water purification may also be designed for a variety of other purposes, including meeting the requirements of medical, pharmacological, chemical and industrial applications. In general the methods used include physical processes such as filtration,sedimentation, and distillation, biological processes such as slow sand filters or biologically active carbon, chemical processes such asflocculation and chlorination and the use of electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet

In order to cleanup the contaminated sites, heavy metals should be extracted and concentrated by an appropriate technique for proper disposal in designated secure landfill sites. The established conventional techniques (e.g., thermal processes, physical separation, electrochemical methods, washing, stabilization/solidification and burial) for clean-up of metal contaminated soils are generally too expensive and often harmful to soil microbial diversity (Dermont et al., 2008; Ma et al., 1993; McGrath et al., 1995; Mulligan et al., 2001; Pulford and Watson, 2003). Plant mediated decontamination/detoxification processes are commonly referred to as