Selective adsorption of palladium and platinum from secondary wastewater using Escherichia coli BL21 and Providencia vermicola.

It is important to recover precious metals from secondary wastewater because of their low crustal abundance. The selective adsorption of palladium (Pd) and platinum (Pt) ions from secondary wastewater, which contains a large amount aluminium and sodium ions, was investigated using Escherichia coli BL21 (BL21), genetically modified E. coli BL21 (EC20) and Providencia vermicola (P. V.). The results demonstrated that P.V., BL21 and EC20 cells took 95.9%, 88.2% and 97.5% of Pd ions, and 64.8%, 93.2% and 100% of Pt ions form industrial wastewater, respectively. All three bacterial biomass could be reused for Pd adsorption with a second adsorption efficiency of > 85%, specifically, the EC20 cells could absorb 93.8% of Pd ions from wastewater. SEM-EDS and XPS analyses confirmed the occurrence of Pd and Pt on the surface of wastewater-absorbed biomass. The shift in FTIR spectrum implied that functional groups, such as hydroxyl, amino, carboxyl and phosphate groups, were involved in wastewater adsorption.