Environmental parameters conditioning microbially induced mineralization under the experimental model conditions

Microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation is one of the biomineralization types closely dependent on the parameters of the microenvironment. Minerals are precipitated as a product of environmental and bacterial cell interactions, however, this system has very little control via microorganisms. The aim of research was to determine the influence of abiotic factors (pH, temperature, agitation speed of bacterial culture and calcium ion source) on the mineralization induced by Arthrobacter sulfureus, Bacillus muralis and B. atrophaeus strains under the standard laboratory conditions. Because of the key role of urease in biomineralization, processes occurring in environments with and without the urea were compared. For this purpose, cultivation of bacteria (A. sulfureus, B. muralis and B. atrophaeus) was carried out in B4 liquid medium for 5 days with various environmental parameters (pH 6-9; temperature 25-44°C; speed of agitation 0-180 rpm, different calcium sources). It was noticed that the pH and the speed of agitation clearly affect the amount of the calcium carbonate that formed. Our observations suggest that the highest precipitation rate takes place in alkaline pH between 8-9, with shaking at 180 rpms. Among studied sources of calcium ions (calcium acetate, calcium chloride and calcium nitrate), calcium acetate demonstrated the strongest potential in the biomineralization process. Moreover, work presented here demonstrates that the correlation between cultivation temperature and biomineralization process cannot be clearly evaluated. The morphology and size of calcium carbonate minerals was strain-specific, although affected by the presence of urea in the surrounding solution.