• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.47 no.4
• /
• pp.431-439
• /
• 2014

The purposes of this research were to investigate the enrichment of metal-reducing bacteria from KURT groundwater and the identification of the microbial diversity by 16S rRNA as well as to examine microbial Fe(III)/Mn(IV) reduction and to analyze morphological features of interactions between microbes and precipitates and their mineralogical composition. To cultivate metal-reducing bacteria from groundwater sampled at the KURT in S. Korea, different electron donors such as glucose, acetate, lactate, formate, pyruvate and Fe(III)-citrate as an electron accepter were added into growth media. The enriched culture was identified by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis for the diversity of microbial species. The effect of electron donors (i.e., glucose, acetate, lactate, formate, pyruvate) and electron acceptors (i.e., akaganeite, manganese oxide) on microbial iron/manganese reduction and biomineralization were examined using the 1st enriched culture, respectively. SEM, EDX, and XRD analyses were used to determine morphological features, chemical composition of microbes and mineralogical characteristics of the iron and manganese minerals. Based on 16S rRNA gene analysis, the four species, Fusibacter, Desulfuromonas, Actinobacteria, Pseudomonas sp., from KURT groundwater were identified as anaerobic metal reducers and these microbes precipitated metals outside of cells in common. XRD and EDX analyses showed that Fe(III)-containing mineral, akaganeite (${\beta}$-FeOOH), reduced into Fe(II)/Fe(III)-containing magnetite ($Fe_3O_4$) and Mn(IV)-containing manganese oxide (${\lambda}-MnO_2$) into Mn(II)-containing rhodochrosite ($MnCO_3$) by the microbes. These results implicate that microbial metabolism and respiratory activities under anaerobic condition result in reduction and biomineralization of iron and manganese minerals. Therefore, the microbes cultivated from groundwater in KURT might play a major role to reduce various metals from highly toxic, mobile to less toxic, immobile.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.283-289
• /
• 2016

In this study, electrochemical characterizations of PdCu/C catalysts that are synthesized by modified polyol method are investigated. Most of all, amount of ethylene glycol (EG) that is used as main component for catalyst synthesis is mainly modulated to optimize synthetic condition of the PdCu/C catalyst, For evaluations about catalytic activity and performance of direct formic acid fuel cell (DFAFC), half cell and full cell tests are implemented. As a result, when amount of EG is 4M, catalytic activities of the PdCu/C catalyst such as peak current of formic acid oxidation and active surface area are best, while maximum power density of DFAFC using the optimized PdCu/C catalyst is better than that using commercial Pd/C (30 wt%) by 6%. Based on that, PdCu/C catalyst synthesized by modified polyol method plays a critical role in improving (i) catalytic activity for formic acid oxidation and (ii) DFAFC performance by employing as anodic catalyst.