Rheinheimera sp. T2C2 Bacterial Biofilm for Bioremediation of Cobalt (II).

Toxic metals, including cobalt, are often the cause of contamination of rivers and lakes in mining regions. Heavy metal water pollution has been linked to numerous human health problems, prompting the need for environmental remediation. Existing techniques for removing heavy metals from water, such as chemical precipitation and filtration, produce toxic waste, are costly, or require high power consumption for pumping. Biosorption is a potential alternative strategy that is cost-effective and uses readily available and naturally produced biomass and living material to absorb pollutants. Engineering living materials, such as biofilms, which consist of living cells and a secreted polymer matrix, offer potential to integrate toxin sensing, sequestration, and metabolism capabilities of cells to improve pollution remediation strategies. New biofilm producing candidates need to be explored to implement these material capabilities. Previous biosorption studies have primarily used bacterial biofilms from known pathogens and/or generate toxic waste in the form of the absorbent material combined with the heavy metal. Here, we describe a newly isolated bacterium called