Microbial Induced Carbonate Precipitation: Environments, Applications, and Mechanisms

Since the beginning of life on Earth, microbes are incessantly interacting with minerals. Microbial mineral dissolution and biomineralization are two key processes, both playing crucial roles in the Earth biogeochemistry and having significant applications in technology at large and in biological technologies for environmental protection in particular. Our current knowledge of such phenomena, despite the considerable amount of work done in this regard, is far from being complete. The current understanding of the role of microorganisms in mineral precipitation is here reviewed in the light of the environmental characteristics driving the microorganism’s activity, the specific microbial ability in mineral precipitation, and the environments from which mineral precipitating microorganisms have been isolated. This review focuses on microbial-mediated mineral precipitation in different natural and man-altered environments, microbiological methods and their applications like soil consolidation, concrete healing.