Microbes degradation

Lee RF, Ryan C. 1979. Microbial degradation of organochlorine compounds in estuarine waters and sediments. In Proceedings Workshop Microb Degradation Pollut Mar Environ, 1978. Washington, DC U.S. EPA, Office of Research and Development. EPA 600/9-79-012. 

Biological. Under aerobic conditions, soil microbes degraded 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene to 1,3- and 1,4-dichlorobenzene and carbon dioxide (Kobayashi and Rittman, 1982). A mixed culture of soil bacteria or a Pseudomonas sp. transformed 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene to 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (Ballschiter and Scholz, 1980). 

Bio-Raptor technology uses a combination of ex situ microbial and mechanical processes to treat soils and sludges that are contaminated with hydrocarbons. The Bio-Raptor unit shreds and screens the excavated soil to increase its surface area. Then, the unit sprays and inoculates the soil with a proprietary blend of microorganisms. The soil is heaped into biopiles while the microbes degrade the contaminants. Bio-Raptor systems are commercially available and have been used for full-scale site cleanups. 

What are the reasons microbes degrade or consume organic compounds ... 

Oil absorption Oil additives Oil and gas drilling Oil-based paints Oil-degrading microbes Oil-enhanced recovery Oil field... 

Bioremediation by the addition of oil-degrading microbes is often promoted as a treatment option for floating spills, but this approach has not yet met with any documented success (13). 

A recent suggestion has been to use plants to stimulate the microbial degradation of the hydrocarbon (hydrocarbon phytoremediation). This has yet to receive clear experimental verification, but the plants are proposed to help deUver air to the soil microbes, and to stimulate microbial growth in the rhizosphere by the release of nutrients from the roots. The esthetic appeal of an active phytoremediation project can be very great. 

Degradation or Transformation. Degradation or transformation of a herbicide by soil microbes or by abiotic means has a significant influence not only on the herbicide s fate in the environment but also on the compound s efficacy. Herbicides that are readily degraded by soil microbes or other means may have a reduced environmental impact but may not be efficacious. Consider the phenomenon of herbicide-resistant soils. In these cases, repeated application of a given herbicide has led to a microbial population with an enhanced ability to degrade that herbicide (252,253). This results in a decrease or total loss of the ability of the herbicide to control the weed species in question in a cost-effective manner. 

Dietary additives can affect the microbiota that are associated with the faeces of animals and degradation of the faeces may be impaired because of the influence of the excretory products on insects, microbes and fungi. The microbiota in the soil and waste material may be affected, thus altering the fertility of the pasture and sustainability of other wildlife. These microbiota can be used as dietary ingredients for animals, so inhibition of their production would be an unsatisfactory consequence of dietary additives. ... 

This stability is important to plastics longterm performance. However, for some applications only short-term performance is desired before the product is discarded, as in the fast-food and packaging markets. In such cases it is considered advantageous for discarded plastic to degrade when exposed to microbes. There thus exists a requirement to develop or modify plastics possessing the properties required for their service life, but with the capability of degrading in a timely... 

In soil and sediments, methyl parathion adsorbs to soil and is expected to display moderate mobility (EPA 1980c). The major degradation process of methyl parathion in soil is biodegradation by microbes (Badway and El-Dib 1984). Degradation by hydrolysis has been observed to occur at higher temperatures... 

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