The microbial cell offers a highly efficient template for the formation of nanoparticles with interesting properties including high catalytic, magnetic and light-emitting activities. Thus biomineralization products are not only important in global biogeochemical cycles, but they also have considerable commercial potential, offering new methods for material synthesis that eliminate toxic organic solvents and minimize expensive high-temperature and pressure processing steps. In this review we describe a range of bacterial processes that can be harnessed to make precious metal catalysts from waste streams, ferrite spinels for biomedicine and catalysis, metal phosphates for environmental remediation and biomedical applications, and biogenic selenides for a range of optical devices. Recent molecular-scale studies have shown that the structure and properties of bionanominerals can be fine-tuned by subtle manipulations to the starting materials and to the genetic makeup of the cell. This review is dedicated to the late Terry Beveridge who contributed much to the field of biomineralization, and provided early models to rationalize the mechanisms of biomineral synthesis, including those of geological and commercial potential.

中文翻译：

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生物矿化：将化石记录与高价值功能材料的生产联系起来。

微生物细胞为纳米粒子的形成提供了一个高效的模板，其具有高催化、磁性和发光活性等有趣特性。因此，生物矿化产品不仅在全球生物地球化学循环中很重要，而且还具有相当大的商业潜力，为材料合成提供了新的方法，可以消除有毒有机溶剂并最大限度地减少昂贵的高温和高压加工步骤。在这篇综述中，我们描述了一系列细菌过程，这些过程可用于从废物流中制造贵金属催化剂、用于生物医学和催化的铁氧体尖晶石、用于环境修复和生物医学应用的金属磷酸盐，以及用于一系列光学设备的生物硒化物。最近的分子尺度研究表明，生物纳米矿物质的结构和特性可以通过对起始材料和细胞基因组成的微妙操作进行微调。这篇评论献给已故的 Terry Beveridge，他在生物矿化领域做出了巨大贡献，并提供了早期模型来合理化生物矿物合成的机制，包括那些具有地质和商业潜力的机制。