Overview of

Bioremediation
Dr. Shaista Javaid
Asst. Prof. Biotechnology, IMBB
Environmental contaminants
• Pollutants
• naturally-occurring compounds in the environment that are
present in unnaturally high concentrations
• crude oil
• refined oil
• phosphates
• heavy metals

• Xenobiotics
• chemically synthesized compounds that have never occurred in
nature.
• pesticides
• herbicides
• plastics
Sources of contamination

• Industrial spills and leaks

• Surface impoundments
• Storage tanks and pipes
• Landfills and dumps
• Injection wells
Sources of contamination

• The major contributors to volatile organic compounds (air

pollution) are from
• Textile industry
• Paint industry
• Pharmaceutical industry
• bakeries
• printers
• dry cleaners
• auto body shops
Strategies to remove contaminants

• Soil vapor extraction

• Air and hydrogen sparging
• Soil washing, in situ soil flushing
• Chemical oxidation/reduction
• Soil excavation
• Pyrometallurgical processes (thermal desorption, electro-
kinetical treatment)
• Bioremediation
What is bioremediation?

• The use of microbes (bacteria and fungi) and plants to break

down or degrade toxic chemical compounds that have
accumulated in the environment into less toxic or non toxic
substances
Types or techniques of bioremediation
• Ex situ bioremediation: contaminants are treated off site
• In situ bioremediation: contaminants are treated on site
• Natural Attenuation (slow process, not complete enough, not frequently occurring enough to
be broadly used for some compounds, especially very difficult or recalcitrant substances)
• Enhanced Bioremediation or Bio-stimulation is to stimulate/enhance a site’s
indigenous subsurface microorganisms by the addition of nutrients
(amendments) and electron acceptors such as P, N, O2, C (e.g., in the form of
molasses, biochar)
• Bioaugmentation is necessary when metabolic capabilities of microorganisms are
not naturally present. Commercially prepared bacterial strains with specific
catabolic activities are added.
• Phytoremediation: extraction of soil pollutants by roots and accumulation or
transformation by plants, e.g., hyperaccumulators
The advantages of bioremediation over other
technologies
• permanence
• contaminant is degraded
• potentially low cost
• 60-90% less than other technologies (No additional disposal costs)
• Low maintenance
• Does not create an eyesore
• Capable of impacting source zones and thus, decreasing site
clean-uptime
Economics of in-situ vs. ex-situ remediation of
contaminated soils

• Cost of treating contaminated soil in place $80-$100 per ton

• Cost of excavating and trucking contaminated soil off for
incineration is $400 per ton.
• Over 90% of the chemical substances classified as hazardous
today can be biodegraded.
Contaminants Potentially Amenable to
Bioremediation
• Readily degradable
• fuel oils, gasoline, ketones and alcohols, monocyclic aromatics & bicyclic
aromatics (naphthalene)
• Some what degradable
• creosote, coal tars, pentachloro-phenol (PCP)
• Difficult to degrade
• chlorinated solvents (TCE), some pesticides and herbicides
• Generally recalcitrant
• dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)
Some challenges for bioremediation of
pollutants and xenobiotics
• Pollutants
• may exist at high, toxic concentrations
• degradation may depend on another nutrient that is in limiting supply

• Xenobiotics
• microbes may not yet have evolved biochemical pathways to degrade
compounds
• may require a consortium of microbial populations
Fundamentals of biodegradation reactions

• Aerobic bioremediation
• Microbes use O2in their metabolism to degrade contaminants
• Anaerobic bioremediation
• Microbes substitute another chemical for O2to degrade contaminants
• Nitrate, iron, sulfate, carbon dioxide, uranium, technetium, perchlorate
• Co-metabolic bioremediation microbes do not gain energy or
carbon from degrading a contaminant. Instead, the
contaminant is degraded via a side reaction
How Microbes Use the Contaminant

• Contaminants may serve as:

• Primary substrate
• enough available to be the sole energy source
• Secondary substrate
• provides energy, not available in high enough concentration
• Co-metabolic substrate
• transformation of a compound by a microbe relying on some other
primary substrate (Co-metabolism is generally a slow process). Bacterium
uses some other carbon and energy source to partially degrade
contaminant (organic aromatic ring compound)
Phytoremediation

• ≈350 plant species naturally take up toxic materials

• Sunflowers used to remove radioactive cesium and strontium from Chernobyl
site
• Water hyacinths used to remove arsenic from water supplies in Bangladesh,
India
Phytoremediation

• Drawbacks
• Only surface soil (root zone) can be treated
• Cleanup takes several years
Conclusions
• Many factors control biodegradability of a contaminant in the environment
• Before attempting to employ bioremediation technology, one needs to conduct a
thorough characterization of the environment where the contaminant exists,
including the microbiology, geochemistry, mineralogy, geophysics and hydrology
of the system
• Most organics are biodegradable, but biodegradation requires specific conditions:
important to understand the physical and chemical characteristics of the
contaminants of interest
• There is no Superbug: understand the possible catabolic pathways of metabolism
and the organisms that possess that capability (functional genomics and
specifically metabolomics)
Conclusions
• Contaminants must be bioavailable and in optimal concentrations
• Biodegradation rate and extent is controlled by “limiting factors”: pH,
temperature, water content, nutrient availability, Redox Potential and oxygen
content
• Understand the environmental conditions required to:
• Promote growth of desirable organisms
• Provide for the expression of needed organisms
• Engineer the environmental conditions needed to establish favorable conditions
and contact organisms and contaminants