Bioremediation
Bioremediation is an eco-friendly, cost-effective, and natural technology targeted to remove heavy metals, radionuclides, xenobiotic compounds, organic waste, pesticides, and more from contaminated sites or areas of industrial discharge. Since this biological bioremediation technology is used in in-situ conditions, it does not physically disturb the site (unlike conventional methods, i.e. chemical or mechanical methods).
The rapid expansion of various industries in the past century has amplified the amount of toxic waste effluents. Bioremediation uses processes via plants and microbes that are either naturally occurring or customized as purpose-specific, to help decompose toxic waste from production.
Why use microbes? Microbes make up most of the earth’s biomass and have evolved for around 3.8 billion years. They are found in virtually every environment, and are surviving and thriving in some of the most extreme conditions. Scientists have found microbes where no other life forms exist: in heat, cold, radiation, high pressure, high salt/salinity, high acidity and total darkness. The ability for microbes to find nutrients, often from inorganic matter, demonstrates the diversity and range of their environmental adaptations and they represent the greatest diversity of life on Earth. Microbes have found solutions to problems that today’s scientists continue to battle, and as such, are a logical choice to enlist as part of a bioremediation process. They are durable, plentiful and natural.
Environmental bioremediation will make use of higher plants or microbes for phyto-extraction of heavy metals from metal contaminated sites. The microbial interventions will create a situation where the metals are immobilized or they are mobilized through redox conversions at the contaminated sites.
If mobilized, the metal accumulating plants are put in place to accumulate metals in the plant body and then the plants are harvested and incinerated to reduce the waste. They can then either be disposed of as hazardous waste or, when possible, used to recover precious metals. In immobilization, metals are no longer available to be toxic to organisms.
The goal of pollution management and technology is to target and minimize the impact of industry on the environment. As an integral part of climate conversion, there is a demand for cleaner and more resource-efficient technologies, combined with a higher focus on the reduction of energy consumption and emissions. The final result is to minimize waste disposal problems.
Meeting the challenge to develop processes that are both economically viable and environmentally sound, we work with natural microbial and antimicrobial products in the following areas:
- Water Quality and Treatment
- Soil Quality
- Air Quality
- Fuel and Waste Gas Cleaning
- Waste Utilization
- Process Optimization
- Resource Efficiency
- Substitution of Hazardous Chemicals
- Other Environmental Technologies