1. B.Sc. V Semester
Unit 3.
Bioremediation of soil and water contaminated with oil spills, heavy
metals and detergents.
Biodegradation of lignin and Cellulose
Phytoremediation.
Degradation of toxic chemicals by microorganisms
Treatment of municipal wastes and industrial effluents.
KLE Society’s
S. Nijalingappa College
Faculty Name: Mr. Rajeev R. Potadar
4. Environmental Biotechnology -
the development, use and regulation of
biological systems for remediation of
contaminated environments (land, air,
water), and for environment-friendly
processes.
Bioremediation - the use of
microorganisms to remedy
environmental problems
Biotechnology and the
Environment
5. What are the events that triggered the
interest in environmental biotechnology?
•Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring (DDT)
•Love Canal
•Burning of a River
•Exxon Valdez in 1989
Biotechnology and the
Environment
6. What do they all have in common?
• The advent of the Industrial Revolution
• increase in products and waste
• people moved to the city
• increase in human population
Biotechnology and the
Environment
7. Regulations were passed:
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976)
• Must identify hazardous waste and establish standards for
managing it properly
• Requires companies that store, treat or dispose to have permits
stating how the wastes are to be managed
• Record of its travels: Chain of Custody
• EPA initiates the Superfund Program (1980)
• Counteract careless and negligent practices
• Environmental Genome Project
• Study and understand the impacts of environmental chemicals on
human diseases
Biotechnology and the
Environment
8. Waste
• Solid: landfills, combustion-including waste-to energy
plants, recovery
• slurries, composting
• Liquid: septic: sewage treatment, deep-well injection
• Gas: fossil fuels, chlorofluorocarbons
• Hazardous –anything that can explode, catch fire, release
toxic fumes, and particles or cause corrosion
Biotechnology and the
Environment
9. Garbage Test
Banana Peel
Wood Scrap/Sawdust
Wax Paper
Styrofoam Cup
Tin Can
Aluminum Soda Can
Plastic Carton
Glass Bottles
0.5 Years
4 Years
5 Years
20 Years
100 Years
500 Years
500 Years
>500 Years
Biotechnology and the
Environment
10. Biogeochemical Cycles are a major
part of the recycling process
Carbon Cycle: The primary biogeochemical cycle
organic cmpds CO2 and back
Nitrogen Cycle: proteins amino acids
NH3NO2
-NO3
-NO2
-N2ON2 NH3 etc_
Sulfur Cycle: Just like the nitrogen cycle,
numerous oxidation states. Modeled in the
Winogradsky column
Phosphorous Cycle: Doesn’t cycle between
numerous oxidation states only soluble and
insoluble form
15. Scientists learn from nature in the 1980’s
• The concept of Gaia –the total world is a living organism
and what nature makes nature can degrade
(bioinfalibility); only man makes xenobiotic compounds
• Clean up pollution-short and long term solutions (cost, toxicity,
time frame)
• Use compounds that are biodegradable
• Produce Energy and Materials in less destructive ways
• Monitor Environmental Health
• Increase Recovery of Minerals and Oil
Biotechnology and the
Environment
16. Bioremediation finds its place
• Companies begin to specialize in cleaning up toxic waste spills by
using a mixture of bacteria and fungi because cleaning these spills
usually requires the combined efforts of several strains.
• Biotechnologists begin engineering “super bugs” to clean up
wastes.
• However, there are many microorganisms in nature that will
degrade waste products.
Biotechnology and the
Environment
17. Bioremediation Basics
Naturally occurring marshes and wetlands have
been doing the job!
What Needs to be Cleaned UP?
• Everything!
• How do pollutants enter the environment?
• Runoff, leachates, air
• SO How bioremediation is used depends on
1) what is contaminated? (locations)
2) on the types of chemicals that need to be cleaned up
3) the concentration of the contaminants (amount and
duration)
18. Chemicals in the environment
• Sewage (by products of medicines and food we eat such
as estrogen (birth control pills) and caffeine (coffee)
• Products around the house (perfumes, fertilizers,
pesticides, medicines)
• Industrial
• Agricultural
Bioremediation Basics
20. Bioremediation Basics
Fundamentals of Cleanup Reactions
• Microbes can convert many chemicals into
harmless compounds HOW?
• Aerobic or anaerobically
• Both involve oxidation and reduction reactions
21. Bioremediation Basics
Fundamentals of Cleanup 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
23. Bioremediation Basics
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!
24. 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 Basics
25. 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
Bioremediation Basics
26. Phytomediation
• Utilizing plants to clean up chemicals
• Ex: cottonwoods, poplar, juniper trees, grasses, alfalfa
• Low cost, low maintenance and it adds beauty to the site
Bioremediation Basics
27. 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?
28. Cleanup Sites and Strategies
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
29. Cleanup Sites and Strategies
Bioremediation of Water
• Wastewater treatment
30. Cleanup Sites and Strategies
Bioremediation of Water
• Groundwater Cleanup
31. Aquatic Microbiology & Sewage
Treatment
The freshwater and seawater habitats of
microorganisms.
How wastewater pollution is a public health
problem and an ecological problem.
Discuss the causes and effects of eutrophication.
Explain how water is tested for bacteriological
purity.
Describe how pathogens are removed from
drinking water.
32. Compare primary, secondary, and tertiary
sewage treatment.
List some of the biochemical activities that
take place in an anaerobic sludge
digester.
Define biochemical oxygen demand (BOD),
activated sludge system, trickling
filter, septic tank, and oxidation pond.
Aquatic Microbiology & Sewage
Treatment
33.
34. Freshwater Microbiota
Littoral zone: Along shore
Producers: Plants
Limnetic zone: Surface of open water along
shore
Producers: Algae and cyanobacteria
Profundal zone: Deeper water, under limnetic
zone
Producrs: Anaerobic purple and green photosynthetic
bacteria
Benthic zone: Bottom sediment
40. Microbial Water Pollution
Microbes are filtered from water that percolates into groundwater
Some pathogens are transmitted to humans in drinking and recreational
water
42. Chemical Water Pollution
Resistant chemicals may be
concentrated in the aquatic food chain
Mercury is metabolized by certain
bacteria into a soluble compound,
which is concentrated in animals
43. Eutrophication
Overabundance of nutrients in lakes and
streams
Caused by
Addition of organic matter
Or inorganic matter
Phosphates
Nitrogen
Which cause algal blooms
46. Water Purity Tests
Indicator organisms
Used to detect fecal contamination
Coliforms
Enterococcus
MPN:
Most probable number/100 ml of water
47. Coliforms
Aerobic or facultatively anaerobic, gram-
negative, non–endospore forming rods
that ferment lactose to acid plus gas
within 48 hours, at 35°C
53. Which disease is more likely to be transmitted by
polluted water, cholera or influenza?
Name a microorganism that will grow in water even if
there is no source of organic matter for energy or a
nitrogen source—but does require small inputs of
phosphorus.
Coliforms are the most common bacterial indicator of
health-threatening water pollution in the United States.
Why is it usually necessary to specify the term fecal
coliform?
56. Wastewater Treatment:
Oxidation Ponds
For small communities
Pond 1: Settle solids, pump water to pond 2
Pond 2: Bacterial decomposition of dissolved
organic matter in water
57. Municipal Sewage
Treatment
Primary treatment
Removal of solids
Disinfection
Secondary treatment
Removal of much of the BOD
Disinfection
Water can be used for irrigation
Tertiary treatment
Removal of remaining BOD, N, and P
Disinfection
Water is drinkable
65. Tertiary Sewage
Treatment
Secondary effluent contains
Residual BOD
50% of the original nitrogen
70% of the original phosphorus
Tertiary treatment removes these by
Filtration through sand and activated
charcoal
Chemical precipitation
68. When healthy Daphnia are fed a sugar substrate (-
galactoside attached to a fluorescent marker), they
metabolize the sugar and fluoresce under UV light.
When Daphnia are stressed by toxins, they do not have the
enzymatic ability to digest the sugar and therefore do not
fluoresce under UV light.
Environmental Diagnostics
69. 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.
Environmental Diagnostics
70. Petroleum eating bacteria
• Ananda Chakrabarty at General Electric
Heavy metals (bioaccumulation)
• Bacteria sequester heavy and radioactive
metals
Biosensors
• lux genes
Applying Genetically Engineered Strains to
Clean Up the Enviroment
71. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
• In the end, the indigenous microbes did the best job
Oil Fields of Kuwait
• Poses a problem due to the environmental conditions
Environmental Disasters: Case Studies
in Bioremediation
72. Microbial genetics
New types of microbes (from the ocean etc)
Radioactive materials
DO A BETTER JOB OF DETERMINING RISK and
ASSESSMENT OF EXISTING SITES
Future Strategies and Challenges
for Bioremediation