1. BIOTECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT BY Madam Noorulnajwa Diyana Yaacob PPK Bioproses LECTURE 9

2. Chapter Contents 1. What Is Bioremediation? 2. Bioremediation Basics
3. Cleanup Sites and Strategies
4. Applying Genetically Engineered Strains to Clean Up the Environment
5. Environmental Disasters: Case Studies in Bioremediation
6. Future Strategies and Challenges for Bioremediation

3. 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

4. What Is Bioremediation?
Initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
To pollution due to chemical dumping and storage
Purpose is to clean up hazardous waste sites

5. What Is Bioremediation?
Why use bioremediation?
To convert harmful pollutants into relatively harmless materials such as carbon dioxide, chloride, water, and simple organic molecules
Processes are generally cleaner

6. 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

7. 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

8. Bioremediation Basics

9. Bioremediation Basics
Chemicals in the Environment
Carcinogens
– Compounds that cause cancer
Mutagens
Cause skin rashes, birth defects
Poison plant and animal life

10. Bioremediation Basics

11. 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)
Both processes involve oxidation and reduction reactions
Oxidation – removal of one or more electrons from an atom or molecule
Reduction –addition of one or more electrons to an atom or molecule

12. Bioremediation Basics

13. Bioremediation Basics
Aerobic and Anaerobic Biodegradation

14. Bioremediation Basics
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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 9.3 Cleanup Sites and Strategies

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

19. Wastewater treatment It is a well known application of bioremediation
The purpose is to remove;
Human sewage
fecal material
paper wastes
Soaps
Detergents
Other household chemicals

20. Wastewater treatment
House septic systems and municipal wastewater treatment facility use bioremediation
Human sewage from residential house

21. Cleanup Sites and Strategies

22. Cleanup Sites and Strategies

23. 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

24. 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

25. 9.4 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

26. Environmental Disasters: Case Studies in Bioremediation
Jet Fuel and Hanahan, South Carolina
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Oil Fields of Kuwait

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