1. Bioremediation

2. 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

3. What Is Bioremediation?
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

4. What Is Bioremediation?
Environmental Genome Project
Purpose is to study and understand the impacts of environmental chemicals on human disease
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

5. What Is Bioremediation?
Biotechnological approaches are essential for
Detecting pollutants
Restoring ecosystems
Learning about conditions that can result in human diseases
Converting waste products into valuable energy

6. Bioremediation Basics
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

7. Bioremediation Basics

8. Bioremediation Basics
Chemicals in the Environment
Carcinogens
Mutagens
Cause skin rashes, birth defects
Poison plant and animal life

9. Bioremediation Basics

10. Bioremediation Basics
Fundamentals of Cleanup Reactions
Microbes convert chemicals into harmless substances by either
Aerobic metabolism (require oxygen) or anaerobic metabolism (do not require oxygen)

11. Bioremediation Basics
Aerobic and Anaerobic Biodegradation

12. Bioremediation Basics
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

13. Bioremediation Basics
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

14. 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

15. Cleanup Sites and Strategies

16. Cleanup Sites and Strategies
Bioremediation of Water
Wastewater treatment
Groundwater cleanup

17. Cleanup Sites and Strategies

18. Cleanup Sites and Strategies

19. Cleanup Sites and Strategies
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

20. Cleanup Sites and Strategies

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. Future Strategies and Challenges for Bioremediation
Recovering Valuable Metals
Bioremediation of Radioactive Wastes