Team:NEFU China

Heavy metals, especially zinc and cadmium, inevitably, have detrimental effects on the environment and our human race. To be more specific, water sources can be contaminated by heavy metals leaching from industrial waste; acid rain can exacerbate this process by releasing heavy metals trapped in soils. Considering the properties of heavy metals, unable to decay and thus a different kind of challenge for medication, we have constructed a heavy metal detection and recycle system. Briefly, our system is based on a special strain of E.coli containing smt-locus, CDS7 and an unfamiliar flocculation gene. The system can detect the existence of metal cadmium through visualized pigment gene driven by the smt-locus, recycle these heavy metal ions by forming nanocrystals resulted from CDS7 and flocculate the nanocrystals. Eventually, we can realize our double-win goal, safeguarding our environment by removing heavy metal ions and yielding a great amount of nanocrystals.