Accurate determination of tetravalent uranium reduced by microorganisms via a potentiometric titration procedure

Abstract Although bioreduction induced by microorganisms has been considered to play an important role in the chemical and migration behaviors of uranium in nature, the accurate determination of tetravalent uranium reduced by microorganisms is still difficult to achieve. In this work, potentiometric titration via K 2 Cr 2 O 7 was used to quantitatively determine the microorganism reduced tetravalent uranium (U(IV)) for the first time. By evaluating the influence of microorganism substance content on the titration of U(IV), the appropriate determination range of U(IV) and biomass was confirmed, and U(IV) induced by bioreduction in three microorganisms was determined. With this method, U(IV) of more than 0.12 mg in microorganisms can be quantitatively measured with an accuracy of 2.2% and a precision of 1.3%, which has been established with the premise that the pretreatment biomass and quantity of U(IV) are in an appropriate range. Compared with the estimated values via the changes in hexavalent uranium (U(VI)) concentration in the bioreduction system, the results obtained by this method can more accurately reflect the quantity of U(IV) in microorganisms. This work can help us to better understand the bioreduction behavior of uranium in the environment.