Effects of microbe-mineral interaction on the environmental behaviors of coexisting pollutants: a review

<p indent="0mm">Minerals, as an important component of the Earth, are widely present in the environment and play a positive role in environmental governance and protection. Microorganisms, as the earliest living organisms on Earth, are the foundation of life and play an important role in the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur cycles. Since the origin of life on Earth, minerals and microorganisms have exhibited coevolution over time, which has a profound impact on geological and environmental processes. At present, researches on the interaction between microorganisms and minerals mainly focus on the following four aspects: (1) adsorption of microorganisms on mineral surfaces; (2) Feedback and adaptation mechanisms of microorganisms to mineral stress; (3) the influence of microorganisms on the surface properties and morphological structure of minerals and (4) the environmental significance of the interaction between microorganisms and minerals. In summary, microorganisms and minerals interact through mechanisms such as adsorption, electron transfer, proton exchange, chelation, biomechanics, and biochemistry. In the process of interaction, minerals can provide protection and nutrition for microorganisms, improve their resistance to external pressure and interference, promote their metabolic processes, and may also have toxic effects on microorganisms by releasing metal elements, thus affecting the physiological activity of microorganisms. Meanwhile, microorganisms can, in turn, change the physicochemical properties and structure of minerals through dissolution and transformation. In practical environments, the interaction between microorganisms and minerals not only changes the metabolic pathways of microorganisms and the chemical stability of minerals, but also affects the environmental behavior of energy flow, element cycling, and coexisting pollutants, which is of great significance in resource recovery, environmental remediation, and carbon cycling. Therefore, the interaction between microorganisms and minerals is one of the core research topics in the field of environmental science. Although significant progresses have been made in the interaction between microorganisms and minerals as well as their environmental effects, researches on the interaction between minerals, microorganisms, and pollutants have mostly focuses on reaction processes with a lack of mechanistic studies. Exploration in this field is still in its infancy, and existing researches still have limitations. For instance, most studies are conducted under simplified environmental conditions at the laboratory scale, which cannot accurately reflect the complex interactions between microorganisms and minerals under natural environmental conditions. The detailed mechanisms governing the interactions between microorganisms and minerals at the molecular or atomic level remain largely unexplored. In addition, current researches mainly focus on the effects of mineral-microbe interaction on the transformation of heavy metals and the degradation of benzene derivatives, with less research on other types of pollutants. Therefore, future researches are warranted to (1) explore the differences in mechanisms governing mineral-microbe interaction at microscopic level through omics techniques and molecular dynamics simulations, (2) extend experimental observations from laboratory scale to full scale via field studies, and (3) promote the application of mineral-microbe interactions in pollutant treatment through practical environmental remediation projects. In summary, this review summarizes the state-of-art of the interaction between microorganisms and minerals as well as the underlying mechanisms. How microbe-mineral interaction affects the environmental behaviors of coexisting pollutants and their potential applications in environmental remediation are then reviewed and discussed. The knowledge gaps of current researches were analyzed followed by a summarization of future prospect. This review will contribute to a deep understanding of the relationship between microorganisms and minerals as well as their impact on the environmental behaviors of pollutants. This review will also provide theoretical support for the sustainable remediation of contaminated environments.