Precipitation

Environmental chemistry

Contamination

Physics

Engineering

Adsorption

Meteorology

Political science

Organic chemistry

Biomineralization

Chemistry

Ecology

Mineralogy

Calcium carbonate

Amendment

Calcite

Carbonate

Soil remediation

Chemical engineering

Environmental remediation

Cadmium

Biology

Dissolution

Journal of Hazardous Materials

As one of the most toxic heavy elements, humans are mainly exposed to cadmium (Cd) via daily diets and smoking. Calcite can be used as an amendment directly or precipitated in situ based on microbial-induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) technology to immobilize Cd in soil with potential release of Cd due to calcite dissolution. Therefore, we converted microbial-induced calcite to less soluble hydroxyapatite and investigated the phase and morphology evolutions of the solids, as well as the immobilized efficiency, distribution and release of Cd. The results showed that the conversion of calcite to hydroxyapatite enhanced Cd removal efficiency up to 1.67% and 33.14% compared to the MICP process and adsorption by calcite, respectively. Accordingly, the released Cd decreased up to 94.10% and 99.96%, respectively. Our findings demonstrated that the conversion of calcite to hydroxyapatite might control the environmental behavior of heavy metals like Cd and can potentially be applied for soil remediation.

Immobilization of cadmium by hydroxyapatite converted from microbial precipitated calcite