E. Coli Can Be Used To Clean Up Nuclear Waste 102
jerryjamesstone writes "Researchers have found that E. coli can be used to recover uranium from tainted waters and can even be used to clean up nuclear waste. Using the bacteria along with inositol phosphate, the bacteria breaks down the phosphate — also called phytic acid — to free the phosphate molecules. The phosphate then binds to the uranium forming a uranium-phosphate precipitate on the cells of the bacteria. Those cells can then be harvested to recover the uranium." What has made this 14-year-old process economically feasible is the use of inositol phosphate, which is a cheap waste material from the production feedstock from plant material.
as a professional microbiologist ... (Score:3, Informative)
even better would be E. coli, but perhaps I ask too much :(
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Informative)
First off, naturally occurring Uranium isn't all that radioactive. For the most part its U238, which doesn't give off much radiation. And, spent reactor fuel is even more skewed towards U238, otherwise known as Depleted Uranium, the stuff the military uses for armor piercing bullets. You can hold either of this stuff in your bare hands and not have any ill effects. One thing to keep in mind with radioactive materials, the stuff which has half lives of millions or billions of years (U238 is 4.46 billion years, U235 is 703 Million years) isn't producing a heck of a lot of ionizing radiation. The problem with Uranium is that it is a toxic heavy metal, and like other toxic heavy metals (lead, thorium) it will deposit in your internal organs, build up and eventually kill you.
The second problem with the mutated E. Coli of Death is that the vast majority of mutations will result death fairly quickly. Of the ones which don't, they will probably just result in death slowly. Yes, the E. Coil could get some sort of useful mutation out of it, but it's not really more likely to happen in this cleanup site than anywhere else.