ARPHA Conference Abstracts :
Conference Abstract
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Corresponding author: Muammar Mansor (muammar.muammar-bin-mansor@uni-tuebingen.de)
Received: 22 May 2023 | Published: 12 Oct 2023
© 2023 Muammar Mansor, Hrvoje Višić, Eric Runge, Jeremiah Shuster, Stefan Fischer, Andreas Kappler, Jan-Peter Duda
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Mansor M, Višić H, Runge E, Shuster J, Fischer S, Kappler A, Duda J-P (2023) Microbial pyrite formation: mineral morphology and precipitation kinetics. ARPHA Conference Abstracts 6: e106753. https://doi.org/10.3897/aca.555.e106753
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Pyrite (FeS2) is a mineral of wide interest due to its importance in the biogeochemical cycling of Fe and S, which is tied to those of carbon and other trace metals and nutrients. The mineral itself has potential applications as biosignatures, for environmental remediation and as semiconductors. Despite being a common authigenic mineral in sedimentary environments, most laboratory-based experiments have failed to form pyrite in microbial cultures at ambient temperatures. To fill this knowledge gap, we have employed cultivation-based approaches, using different combinations of microorganisms (Fe(III)- and S0-reducers; S0-disproportionaters) and initial Fe and S sources to identify the conditions that are optimal for pyrite formation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) demonstrate that pyrite is not formed within ~3 years at circumneutral pH when oxidants (e.g., Fe(III) minerals, elemental sulfur, S0) are exhausted. In contrast, pyrite is formed within months when S0 and Fe(III) minerals are both present. The precipitation timescale is consistent with those expected in sedimentary environments
pyrite, Fe(III) minerals, elemental sulfur, scanning electron microscopy, Raman, biosignatures
Muammar Mansor
ISEB-ISSM 2023