Europium has some industrial uses, most notably to generate the color red in television screens. The fluorescence properties of europium have made Eu³⁺ ions valuable as a research tool for probing macromolecule binding sites (Eads et al, 1985). No essential biological role for europium is known, but Eu³⁺ ions were found to enhance the activity of a yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (Zhang et al, 1999). Escherichia coli cells growing in a complex medium with europium nitrate accumulated europium in the periplasmic space (Bayer and Bayer, 1991) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells are an effective biosorbent for the removal of Eu³⁺ ions from solution (Texier et al, 2002).

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