Germs convert metals and other nasty compounds into less toxic

Konstantinidis and his colleagues studied on a bacterial genus called as Shewanella, which is seen in a broad range of ecosystems ranging from the Arctic to the Amazon.

Shewanella has a capacity to change metals and other nasty compounds into less toxic stuff - which makes the bacteria well-suited for environmental cleanup duty. Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 is mainly good at sucking metal oxides from groundwater and transforming them into unsolvable forms that can be removed very easily.

With Shewanella experiments are going on to find whether it can be used as a potential power converter for microbial fuel cells.