Bioremediation

Bioremediation
What is Bioremediation?
• Biodegradation - the use of living organisms such as
bacteria, fungi, and plants to degrade chemical compounds
• Bioremediation – process of cleaning up environmental sites

contaminated with chemical pollutants by using living
organisms to degrade hazardous materials into less toxic
substances
• 1980 Superfund Program established by U.S. Congress
Initiative of the U.S.
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): To counteract
careless and even negligent practices of chemical dumping
and storage, as well as concern over how these pollutants
might affect human health and the environment.
• Purpose is to locate and clean up hazardous waste sites
• Environmental Genome Project
• Purpose is to study and understand the impacts of environmental
chemicals on human disease.
Q: Why use bioremediation?

- Most approaches convert harmful pollutants into relatively harmless
materials such as carbon dioxide, chloride, water, and simple organic
molecules
- Processes are generally cleaner
Biotechnological approaches are essential for
- Detecting pollutants
- Restoring ecosystems
- Learning about conditions that can result in human diseases
- Converting waste products into valuable energy
Bioremediation Basics
Q: What needs to be cleaned up?
• Soil, water, air, and sediment
• Pollutants enter environment in many different ways
• Tanker spill, truck accident, ruptured chemical tank at
industrial site, release of pollutants into air
• Location of accident, the amount of chemicals released, and
the duration of the spill impacts the parts of the
environment affected
• Chemicals in the Environment
- Carcinogens
- Mutagens
- Cause skin rashes, birth defects
- Poison plant and animal life

The Players: Metabolizing Microbes
- Indigenous microbes – those found naturally at a polluted site
- Bacteria
- Pseudomonas
- E.coli
- Algae and fungi
• Phanerochaete chrysosporium
• Phanerochaete sordida
• Fusarium oxysporum
• Mortierella hyaline
• Stimulating Bioremediation
- Nutrient enrichment (fertilization) – fertilizers are added to a
contaminated environment to stimulate the growth of indigenous
microorganisms that can degrade pollutants
- Bioaugmentation (seeding) –bacteria are added to the
contaminated environment to assist indigenous microbes with
biodegradative processes
Cleanup Sites and Strategies
• Soil Cleanup
- Ex situ bioremediation
• Slurry phase bioremediation
• Solid phase bioremediation
- Composting
- Land farming
- Biopiles
- In situ bioremediation
• Bioventing – pumping either air or hydrogen peroxide into the
contaminated soil
• Soil Cleanup
- Ex situ bioremediation
• Slurry phase bioremediation
• Solid phase bioremediation
- Composting
- Land farming
- Biopiles
- In situ bioremediation
• Bioventing – pumping either air or hydrogen peroxide into the
contaminated soil
• Bioremediation of Water
- Wastewater treatment
- Groundwater cleanup
• Bioremediation of Water
- Wastewater treatment
- Groundwater cleanup
• Turning Wastes into Energy
- Methane gas used to produce electricity
- Soil nutrients can be sold commercially as fertilizers
- Anaerobes in sediment that use organic molecules to
generate energy
• Electicigens – electricity-generating microbes
Applying Genetically Engineered Strains to Clean
Up the Environment
• Petroleum-Eating Bacteria
- Created in 1970s
- Isolated strains of pseudomonas from contaminated soils
- Contained plasmids that encoded genes for breaking down the
pollutants.
Applying Genetically Engineered Strains to Clean
Up the Environment
• E. coli to clean up heavy metals
- Copper, lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury
• Biosensors – bacteria capable of detecting a variety of
environmental pollutants
• Genetically Modified Plants and Phytoremediation
- Plants that can remove RDX and TNT
Environmental Disasters: Case Studies in
Bioremediation
• Jet Fuel and Hanahan, South Carolina
• The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
• Oil Fields of Kuwait
• BP Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico
Jet Fuel and Hanahan, South Carolina
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Oil Fields of Kuwait
BP Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico
Future Strategies and Challenges for
Bioremediation
• Recovering Valuable Metals
• Bioremediation of Radioactive Wastes

Bioremediation

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Bioremediation

• Bioremediation – process of cleaning up environmental sites

Q: Why use bioremediation?

- Cause skin rashes, birth defects

- Poison plant and animal life

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

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