Bioremediation Basics

Chemicals in the environment

Sewage (by products of medicines and food)
Products around the house (perfumes, fertilizers, pesticides, medicines)
Industrial
Agricultural
Fundamentals of Cleanup Reactions
Microbes can convert many chemicals into harmless compounds HOW?
Aerobic or anaerobically
Both involve oxidation and reduction reactions
Oxidation and Reduction Reactions
Oxidation involves the removal of one or more electrons
Reduction involves the addition of one or more electrons
Oxidizing agents gain electrons and reducing agents lose electrons
The rxns are usually coupled and the paired rxns are known are redox reactions
Aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation
Aerobic
Oxygen is reduced to water and the organic molecules (e.g. petroleum, sugar)
are oxidized
Anaerobic
An inorganic compound is reduced and the organic molecules are oxidized (e.g.
nitrate is reduced and sugar is oxidized)
NOTE: Many microbes can do both aerobic and anaerobic respiration; the process which
produces the most ATP is used first!

The Players: Metabolizing Microbes
Site usually contains a variety of microbes
Closest to the contaminant: anaerobes
Farthest away: aerobes
The most common and effective bacteria are the indigenous microbes (e.g.
Pseudomonas in soil)
Fungus and algae are also present in the environment and do a good job of cleaning
up chemicals (fungi do it better than bacteria)
Bioremediation Genomics Programs
Stimulating Bioremediation
Add fertilizers (nutrient enrichment) to stimulate the growth of indigenous
microorganisms
Adding bacteria or fungus to assist indigenous microbes is known as
bioaugumentation or seeding
Phytomediation
Utilizing plants to clean up chemicals
Cottonwoods, poplar, juniper trees, grasses, alfalfa
Low cost, low maintenance and it adds beauty to the site
Cleanup Sites and Strategies
Do the chemicals pose a fire or explosive hazard?
Do the chemicals pose a threat to human health including the health of clean-up workers? (what
happened at Chernobyl to the workers?)
Was the chemical released into the environment through a single incident or was there long-
term leakage from a storage container?
Where did the contamination occur?
Is the contaminated area at the surface of the soil? Below ground? Does it affect water?
How large is the contaminated area?
Soil Cleanup
Either remove it (ex situ bioremediation) or in situ (in place)
In place:
If aerobic may require bioventing
Most effective in sandy soils
Removed:
Slurry-phase, solid phase, composting, landfarming, biopiles
Environmental Diagnostics
A promising new area of research involves using living organisms to detect and assess harmful
levels of toxic chemicals.
Toxicity reduction involves adding chemicals to hazardous waste in order to diminish the
toxicity.
For example, if the toxicity results from heavy metals, EDTA will be added to the waste
and the effluent will be tested again to determine if the toxicity has been acceptably
reduced.
EDTA chelates (binds to) metals, thereby making them unavailable to harm
organisms in a particular body of water.

Applying Genetically Engineered Strains to Clean Up
Petroleum eating bacteria
Ananda Chakrabarty at General Electric
Heavy metals (bioaccumulation)
Bacteria sequester heavy and radioactive metals
Biosensors
lux genes
Future Strategies and Challenges for Bioremediation
Microbial genetics
New types of microbes (from the ocean etc)
Radioactive materials
DO A BETTER JOB OF DETERMINING RISK and ASSESSMENT OF EXISTING SITES
Uses of Environmental Biotech
Biodegradation
Wastewater treatment plants, organic farming
Bioremediation
Environmental clean-up companies, labs developing super bugs
Biocatalysis
Plastics, degradable and recyclable products
Other
Mining companies, oil companies