Bioaugmentation for Detoxification of Soil and Groundwater
Keeping our soil and ground water safe is as important as our drinking water reservoir where the various contaminants can find their way to our food supply. Soil contamination is as ubiquitous as our internet technology and telephony but addressing it has taken the least amount of attention and coverage as other technologies have. The conventional method of detoxification until quite recently was and still is through Biostimulation where by activating indigenous microbes by addition of nutrient materials, etc. However, this approach cannot be used at sites not inhabited by chlorinated ethene-degrading microbes (approx. 30% of the Japan national land contaminated with volatile organic compounds).
To address this growing problem a company from Tokyo by the name of Kurita Water Industries Ltd., Japan’s leading provider of water treatment chemicals, facilities, and maintenance services has announced development of Bioaugmentation Technology for Detoxification of Contaminated Soil and Groundwater that has been contaminated with chlorinated ethene by degrading it to a harmless ethene form. Advantage of bioaugmentation is reduction of clean-up time by up to 50% and its cost by up to 30% compared with the conventional biostimulation approach. Bioaugmentation uses vinyl chloride-degrading microbes, called Dehalococcoides; this new approach was approved for the first time in Japan as a technology for in situ degradation and detoxification of chlorinated ethenes, in compliance with the national government’s Guidelines on Use of Microbial-based Bioremediation. Bioremediation is a general term that has been used for clean up of contaminated soil, groundwater, etc. by utilizing microbes to degrade contaminants.
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