Molecular and spetroscopic characterization of uranium complexes formed bei different bacteria isolated form uranium mining wastes

Microorganisms have a potential to affect mobility and overall environmental behaviour of heavy metals and radionuclides through solubility and speciation changes, biosorption, bioaccumulation or other bio-transformations. In this study we used a combination of Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy, Infrared (IR) spectroscopy and Time Resolved Laser Induced Fluorescence Spectroscopy (TRLFS) to characterize the uranium complexes formed by different bacterial strains such as Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans D2, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia JG-2, Bacillus sphaericus JG-A12 which were isolated from uranium mining wastes. In addition several reference strains namely Pseudomonas stutzeri ATCC 17588; 55595 and Pseudomonas migulae CIP 105470 which were demonstrated to be relevant to the bacterial populations in the uranium wastes were studied as well. The EXAFS analysis demonstrated that in the case of B. sphaericus JG-A12, the U(VI) is coordinated to carboxyl groups in a bidentate fashion with an average distance between the U atom and the C atom of 2.91 ± 0.02 Å and to phosphate groups in a monodentate fashion with an average distance between the U atom and the P atom of 3.59 ± 0.02 Å. In the case of the other bacteria, only phosphate groups are implicated in the complexation of uranium in a monodentate mode, with an average distance between the U atom and the P atom of 3.63 ± 0.02 Å. These results are consistent with those found by Infrared measurements. The latter demonstrates the complementary role which EXAFS spectroscopy can play in determining of metal distribution behaviour in the environment. In addition, we applied TRLFS in order to determine the energy and the shape of the emission bands and the fluorescence lifetime of the uranium complexes formed by the different bacterial biomass studied in this work.