what's a good substitute for sodium lactate in making a sulfate medium for bacteria?

Question

oh i've tried and i have tried but i really can't find this sodium lactate in my area. what's a good substitute for it? i read that it acts as an electron donor for bioremediating organisms (see link). do you guys have any idea for a good substitute that works the same way?

http://www.p2pays.org/ref/14/0_initiatives/init/summer00/bioremediate.htm

Answer 1

Let me give you a bit of background on the process. The way any organism gets energy it by combining electron donors and electron acceptors. The transfer of electrons produces energy, and that's how anything lives. Humans use oxygen as the electron acceptor, and a lot of different things (sugars, proteins, fats, etc.) as electron donors. As a matter of fact people use lactate as well, it's an intermediate in our metabolism that builds up when muscles are starved for oxygen. Lactic acid is the reason your muscles hurt when you work out.

All the lactic acid is to the ground bacteria is.... FOOD. The nice thing about those bacteria is that in addition to using oxygen as an electron acceptor, they can also use TCE as an electron acceptor, and in the process break it down to more harmless by-products. So all the bacteria are doing is eating, but fortunately their biochemistry is sufficiently different from ours that their eating cleans up our environmental mess. Other bacteria do similar stuff. Here's a link to a story about bacteria that use uranium instead of oxygen and can decontaminate nuclear waste: http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=320

If the bacteria in the ground were like the bacteria in your digestive system, for example, you could substitue lactate with any other type of food. However, since hamburgers, for example, don't naturally exist in soils, soil bacteria have evolved to use other types of carbon sources (food). For example, if you gave them sugar (e.g. honey), they wouldn't be able to "eat" it.

Amusingly enough, the answer to your question is vinegar. If you look at the article you quote it mentions that they break down lactic acid to acetic acid. Acetic acid is just plain, regular, vinegar. The bacteria like lactic acid better than acetic acid, but they'll eat acetic acid too. And if you go to the store buy the cheapest and simplest type of vinegar. Unlike humans, they don't care about the other flavors, all they want is the acetic acid. And the reason you won't find stores selling lactic acid is because it's pretty unstable and decomposes pretty fast. Have fun!

Answer 2

the site below sells what your looking for. they use it for making soap but it should work for you as it is just sodium lactate that you need.

Answer 3

Don't know!

Sorry...