Arsenic Biotransformation in Solid Waste Residue: Comparison of Contributions from Bacteria with Arsenate and Iron Reducing Pathways

Arsenic- and iron-reducing bacteria play an important role in regulating As redox transformation and mobility. The motivation of this study was to compare the contributions of different As- and Fe-reducing bacteria to As biotransformation. In this work, three bacteria strains with different functional genes were employed including Pantoea sp. IMH with the arsC gene, Alkaliphilus oremlandii OhILAs possessing the arrA gene, and Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, an iron reducer. The incubation results showed that Pantoea sp. IMH aerobically reduced 100% of As(V) released from waste residues, though total As release was not enhanced. Similarly, strain OhILAs anaerobically reduced dissolved As(V) but could not enhance As release. In contrast, strain MR-1 substantially enhanced As mobilization because of iron reduction, but without changing the As speciation. The formation of the secondary iron mineral pyrite in the MR-1 incubation experiments, as evidenced by the X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) analysis, contributed little to the uptake of the freed As. Our results suggest that the arsC gene carriers mainly control the As speciation in the aqueous phase in aerobic environments, whereas in anaerobic conditions, the As speciation should be regulated by arrA gene carriers, and As mobility is greatly enhanced by iron reduction.