Chemical contamination and contaminated site remediation

Research into the biotransformation of chemical compounds by microorganisms underpins environmental biotechnologies such as wastewater treatment, anaerobic digestion and bioremediation of contaminated sites. Such technologies are well established and arguably essential in our collective quest to minimise our impact on human and environmental health globally. Sustainable remediation technologies such as bioremediation have especial pertinence given the rate at which society has been polluting the environment over the past century.

International conventions on pollution compel nations and states to develop guidelines, legislation and regulations limiting production and use of harmful chemistry and stipulating trigger values for contaminated site clean-up action. The most common contamination events are the leakage of petroleum hydrocarbons from underground storage tanks, the release of chlorinated organics (organochlorines) from dry cleaning and mechanical facilities, the inappropriate disposal of asbestos and mishandling of heavy metals. The widespread use of fluorinated organics (e.g. perfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, in fire-fighting foams) has also risen to prominence in recent years.

Less common but more serious in scale and impact are contamination events arising from chemical manufacturing facilities. Examples include the Botany Industrial Park in Sydney and the Altona Chemical Complex in Melbourne. Industrial-scale chemical production and handling has resulted in massive soil, groundwater and surface water contamination that can lead to human exposure through direct dermal contact, ingestion and inhalation.

Acute exposure to toxic chemicals can have dramatic impacts on human health leading to rapid cardiac or respiratory failure. Such incidences are rare, however. More common, and therefore concerning, is the long-term exposure of humans to low concentrations of environmental contaminants. This can lead to increased incidences of cancer, liver failure, reduced reproductive success and immune system malfunction. Beyond impacts on human and environmental health, contaminated sites can cause massive disruption in large public and private infrastructure development projects. Examples include the impact of PFAS on the West Gate Tunnel project in Melbourne and the impact of coal tar on the Barangaroo development in Sydney.

Australia has a strong international reputation in common-sense environmental consulting and contracting in the contaminated-site remediation industry. This is rooted in a risk-based approach to ensure potential harm to sensitive environmental or human receptors is minimised while encouraging sustainable efforts to clean up contaminated sites. Sustainability in this sense encompasses social, economic and environmental considerations.

When chemical contamination of the environment is discovered (e.g. chlorinated solvents from dry cleaning operations or petroleum hydrocarbons from petrol stations), iterative rounds of site characterisation are used to develop a conceptual site model enabling development of a risk-based remediation strategy as stipulated in the National Environment Protection (Assessment of Contaminated Sites) Measure (1999) for contaminated sites. Remediation technology options are then assessed through cost, benefit and sustainability analyses to ensure viable approaches to managing risk are economically feasible, supported by various stakeholders and have minimal negative environmental impacts. Finally, a remediation action plan is developed and executed.

The Australasian Land and Groundwater Association (ALGA) supports the Sustainable Remediation Forum (SuRF-ANZ), which is a member of the International Sustainable Remediation Alliance. The SuRF-ANZ envisions the principles of sustainable remediation to not only be applied but be recognised as a necessary part of developing a site remediation and management strategy. Additionally, they envision having the principles written into formal regulatory requirements to be a normal part of responding to site contamination.

Bioremediation as a sustainable remediation technology option

The National Environment Protection Council of Australia publishes National Environment Protection Measures that specify national standards for contaminated site remediation. The National Environment Protection (Assessment of Contaminated Sites) Measure (1999) provides remediation practitioners (environmental consultants and contractors) with a hierarchy of preferred remediation options. Ideally, contamination is treated in situ. If this is not possible, the preference is for contamination to be extracted and treated on site. The least preferred option is for contamination to be removed from the site and treated or disposed of elsewhere. It is up to state and territory governments to legislate requirements for site remediation.

First and foremost, a remediation technology for any given site must have the ability to contain, extract or transform the pollutant in question from the matrix it is contaminating. Containment of contaminant mass using physical barriers or restricting access to particular sites is often a cost-effective approach to mitigating immediate risk, but leaves contaminants in situ for future generations to manage.

Removal of contaminated materials from a site using heavyhanded engineering approaches such as ‘dig and dump’ and ‘pump and treat’ relieves the need for future management of a site, but risks the spread of contamination and often just moves the risk to another location. As sustainability has risen in importance as a selective criterion, these approaches have lost favour given that they are generally costly, energy intensive with associated greenhouse gas emissions, and disruptive to the environment in the case of large-scale excavation or groundwater extraction.

This century has seen the development and widespread application of more-nuanced remediation technologies that transform pollutants in situ to benign products with greatly reduced or unmeasurable impacts on human or environmental health. An example is in situ chemical oxidation using strong oxidising agents to mineralise contaminants. This can be cost effective but comes with risks in application and effectively sterilises the contaminated matrix. Another example is in situ chemical reduction using reducing agents such as zero-valent iron to chemically reduce contaminants to reduce toxicity. There are, however, extremely challenging sites for which it is not feasible to remediate with any of the aforementioned technologies based on sustainability.

The estuarine sediments of Homebush Bay, adjacent to the formerly heavily industrialised Rhodes Peninsula, is one such example. Chemical manufacturing during the 20th century resulted in heavy dioxin contamination of the harbour sediments, resulting in a commercial fishing ban west of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Although the most heavily contaminated sediments were successfully excavated and treated using ex situ physical and chemical approaches by c. 2010, there is no viable remediation option for treating the remaining contamination, which continues to be a source of dioxin contamination throughout Port Jackson. This is glamorous Sydney Harbour’s dirty secret and bioremediation might just be the solution.

Anaerobic biodegradation research underpins subsurface bioremediation applications

Our approach to addressing organochlorine contamination in anaerobic environments is to discover and characterise novel bacteria that can transform these toxic compounds into harmless or less-harmful derivatives. For example, we have discovered two bacteria, Dehalobacter restrictus strain UNSWDHB and Formimonas warabiya strain DCMF, that can work together to transform chloroform (a common toxic groundwater pollutant) to dichloromethane (less harmful than chloroform) and then acetate (harmless). Another example is the discovery of a Dehalobium species that can seductively dechlorinate the most toxic dioxin found in Sydney harbour sediments (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) to the much less toxic trichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin congener.

Discovery of novel organochlorine-degrading bacteria is achieved by using sediment or water from an organochlorinecontaminated environment as an inoculum in anaerobic microcosms. Typically, under this condition we expect to observe organochlorine respiration, where the organochlorine of interest is used as the respiratory terminal electron acceptor resulting in the removal of chloride from the organochlorine. Obligate organochlorine-respiring bacteria (ORB) are heterotrophs that use hydrogen as the electron donor and acetate and bicarbonate as organic and inorganic sources of carbon respectively. Therefore, these substrates are supplied in the anaerobic growth medium. After the initial organochlorine pulse has been depleted it is immediately resupplied. This cycle is repeated and at each iteration 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing is performed to follow the change in community profile, and to identify ORB involved in degrading the organochlorine. Several serial transfers with ~1% inoculation of the parent culture can result in enrichment of the desired ORB to ~90% of the microbial population.

For use at an organochlorine contaminated site, laboratoryscale microcosms in the order of 100 mL must be scaled up by ~1000-fold (i.e. 100 L). We have found that beer kegs are ideal for this purpose as they can maintain anaerobic conditions, are solvent resistant and are cost effective. ORB cultures that are grown in 20-L kegs can then be deployed at contaminated sites in existing groundwater monitoring wells. Once the cultures are in situ, tracking their activity in a dynamic system such as a subsurface aquifer can be challenging. This is because environmental factors can cause large fluctuations in contaminant concentrations. To overcome this challenge a number of steps are taken to functionally characterise ORB so that more than contaminant concentration can be used to confirm in situ degradation of the target organochlorine.

Firstly, the gene encoding the functional enzyme (i.e. the reductive dehalogenase; Rdase) is elucidated so that in situ functional cell numbers can be correlated with contaminant or degradation product concentrations. The Rdase is discovered using native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE)-coupled–liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy (LCMS) and biochemical activity assays. Proteins expressed during cell growth by organohalide respiration are extracted under anaerobic conditions and separated by electrophoresis in their nondenatured and therefore functional form. Discrete protein bands are excised from the gels and tested for activity in anaerobic activity assays that contain a range of organohalides. When the active protein band is identified, the amino acid sequence of the reductive dehalogenase is determined by liquid chromatography– tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MSMS). The amino acid sequence is then in silicon reverse translated to its corresponding nucleotide sequence, which can then be retrieved from the ORB genome. From here qPCR primers can be made for targeted in situ tracking of ORB alongside contaminant depletion.

The isotope enrichment factor is a unique signature associated with different chemical reaction mechanisms and can therefore be used for confirming or differentiating between different contaminant degradation pathways. The isotope enrichment factor for the ORB-facilitated attenuation of a specific organochlorine is determined by gas chromatography–combustion–isotope ratio mass spectroscopy (GC-C-IRMS). GC-C-IRMS ascertains the stable carbon or chlorine isotope ratios of individual organochlorines after GC separation. The mathematical relationship between the changes in isotope ratio v. change in organochlorine concentration provides the unique isotope enrichment factor for the in situ assessment of ORB activity.

Written by Matt Lee and Mike Manefield. 

Matt Lee initially had a lengthy career as an analytical chemist working in the areas of environmental, agricultural and forensic chemistry. Matt obtained a PhD in plant biochemistry from the University of Western Australia (2007). Following the completion of his PhD, his research direction changed to anaerobic microbiology at UNSW. Here Matt has been studying anaerobes that use toxic organohalides as their respiratory electron acceptor thus making them less toxic. These microorganisms are crucial for the remediation of organohalide-contaminated environments.

Mike Manefield is an environmental microbiologist who teaches environmental science and engineering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW. His primary research interest is in pollutant biodegradation. He has published over 130 articles and supervised over 45 PhD, Masters and Honours candidates to completion. He is founder of Novorem Pty Ltd (https://novorem.com.au) supporting Australian industry with environmental microbiology expertise.

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Enretech, already an established Australian-owned clean-tech company, has been pioneering the design, manufacture and implementation of environmental protection & remediation technologies for over 25 years. With its now majority-owned subsidiary, Novorem, the Enretech Group has been taking giant strides in the bioremediation and bioaugmentation spheres, now delivering super-charged, natural solutions for soil and groundwater.

The recent expansion of Novorem’s bio-tech laboratory and staff of environmental scientists, means the internal research, analysis and innovation capabilities will be even further bolstered by the Tersus alliance. Accordingly, Enretech will collaborate with Tersus on the use and sale of Tersus remediation products in Australasia and Japan, and benefit from an extended reach for Novorem’s own solutions into the US market and beyond.

Tersus, a US-based technology company, specialise in the research, development and commercialisation of innovative proprietary solutions for soil and groundwater remediation. They meet the challenging technical demands of contaminated sites by partnering with universities and other professionals to provide innovative products and solutions to the remediation industry.

“We have always been impressed with Enretech’s leadership as an environmental remediation solutions provider in Australasia and their extensive network of distributors across Australia, Asia Pacific and Japan. As an industry leader, Enretech distinguishes itself from other environmental solutions providers with a unique range of sustainable products and testing services combined with unparalleled technical support.” ~ Gary Birk, Managing Partner, Tersus Environmental

 

Full details of this exciting collaboration can be found here.

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When businesses undergo remediation to clean up the contamination, one of the consequences of it is often disrupting the project or business through delays or closures. 

The amount of disruption can vary greatly depending on: 

• The amount of contamination on site 
• How dispersed the contamination is 
• The remediation method chosen 

This article will dive into the 3rd point, discussing the various remediation options out there and which of those will minimise your site disruption.  

What types of remediation projects are there? 

To look closer, there are two main types of remediation projects:  

1. In-situ projects which mean the remediation’s happening in place and businesses aren’t moving the contaminated material around; and 
2. Ex-situ projects where the contaminated material is excavated if it’s contaminated soil, or pumped out of the ground in the case of groundwater contamination.  

Ex-situ projects can be enormously disruptive, especially if the contamination is large enough to need to dig out the entire site. 

The disruptive impacts of traditional remediation methods 

Site disruptions bring serious consequences to organisations. If the contamination has occurred at a site with an active business such as a dry cleaner, service station, parking facility, or manufacturing facilities, then remediation works can force them to shut down. 

Contamination at a property or infrastructure development site such as roads, tunnel or rail projects forces civil engineering projects to stall for extended periods.  

The immediate consequences of this include: 

• Project delays – construction sites operate on tight schedules and any delays carry heavy fines. The longer the site is disrupted, the higher the cost; 
• Reputation loss – when customers see fences around a service station, they know that something’s gone wrong;  
• Loss of staff – hazardous remediation works force staff off-site; and 

• Loss of revenue – for large scale sites, delays can mean millions in lost revenue, and for small businesses, it can be the difference in staying alive. 

In addition to the impacts of site disruption, each method of remediation has its own challenges and impacts: 

While ex-situ remediation has immediate consequences like shutting down the site until the contamination is removed, ex situ remediation approaches generally have low credibility when it comes to economic, social and environmental sustainability. Excavating contaminated soil and transferring it to a treatment or landfill facility is costly, energy intensive, and generally meets with opposition from communities through which contaminated material is transported and communities living near landfill sites. Groundwater pump and treat systems are costly with respect to capital and operational expenditure, energy intensive and involve unsightly above ground infrastructure with large physical footprints. 

For in-situ remediation, traditional chemical (e.g. in situ chemical oxidation) and physical (e.g. thermal desorption) methods can pose significant risks to human (business staff and remediation practitioners) and environmental health (climate, sensitive ecosystems). Strong oxidants pose health and safety risks. Thermal processes need significant energy investment. Both cause disruption of the natural ecosystem, effectively sterilising soil and groundwater thereby destroying the foundational ecosystem services microorganisms provide. Approaches that involve volatilisation of contaminants can also result in exposure to vapours requiring additional above ground safety precautions. 

Bioremediation, as an alternative, can be deployed as a standalone solution for many sites or in a treatment train for others to reduce negative impacts of over engineered remediation approaches and improve sustainability credentials of a remediation project. 

How bioremediation reduces site disruption 

Bioremediation falls into the in-situ remediation category, and it utilises biological sources like bacteria to destroy contamination.  

Bioremediation can be likened to keyhole surgery compared to other remediation technologies which are more akin to traditional surgery. It’s far less disruptive and it carries many benefits like: 

• Being safer to use – amendments for bioremediation are typically benign, so there are limited safety risks, meaning sites can continue operating; 
• Being less invasive – bioremediation doesn’t require sites to be excavated or disturbed on a large scale to inject the solution, so there’s minimum damage to the site; and 

• Being environmentally friendly – bioremediation works with the natural environment and is far gentler on the ecology of the site. For the many organisations needing to abide by strict ESG requirements, bioremediation will be the preferred solution. 

One business that utilised bioremediation recently with the help of Novorem is Lawrence Dry Cleaners in Sydney, which was affected by an underground trichloroethylene spill which was impacting groundwater and migrating off site in dissolved phase plumes.  

The business decided that bioremediation would be the optimal solution because remediation workers could go into the site, drill wells through the concrete floor, and inject amendments into groundwater beneath the business without disrupting operations. The business was able to keep running throughout the process. 

But while bioremediation carries significant benefits, the site conditions need to be able to support biological activity, and in many cases, it takes longer to remediate the site through this method. We’ve previously written an article about how to make bioremediation work for you if you want to learn more about this aspect of bioremediation. 

How to get the most out of bioremediation 

To ensure your bioremediation project runs smoothly, intelligent site characterisation is required to develop a high quality conceptual site model enabling risk based derivation of a site management or remediation action plan.  

Your entire remediation plan will be based on this model, and intelligent site characterisation will help you understand your site accurately and prevent you from over-engineering the infrastructure for field interventions and monitoring.  

Without an understanding of your site and the location of the contamination, you risk overspending on injection and monitoring wells. For example, instead of putting in 100 wells to cover your bases if you don’t know where the contamination is, you could put in 10 because you do know exactly where the contamination is. 

This reduces the cost of putting in wells, which carries over to reducing the cost of monitoring and analysing samples from too many wells.  

Intelligent site characterisation can also help you locate the source zone of the contamination, where contaminant concentrations are highest in the location of the spill, and then target it. 

Reduce site disruption with a helping hand from Novorem 

Remediation can have significant adverse effects on your business or site – but there are ways to avoid it with less invasive bioremediation solutions. If you’re considering this option or have already decided on it, it’s crucial to have a plan and clear understanding of the entire project 

Novorem has expertise to support bioremediation projects – we’re aware of the need to minimise site disruption and can offer solutions that are minimally intrusive.  

Our services include the supply of microorganisms and nutrient formulations to stimulate the right biological activity, and analytical expertise that requires small sample volumes obtained through unobtrusive sampling procedures. 

To learn more about how we can assist you to improve bioremediation results and treatment plan construction, don’t hesitate to reach out via our contact form or email us at info@novorem.com.au. 

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Environmental solutions group Enretech is breaking new ground in soil remediation methods

Putting the planet first & achieving global success

Contaminated soil has been a major contributor to a surge in hazardous waste across Australia in the 2020 financial year, according to a report commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. The report, Hazardous Waste in Australia 2021, highlights that of the 7.4 million tonnes of hazardous waste generated each year in Australia, 35 per cent is from contaminated soil, mostly in Victoria and Queensland. Most of this contaminated soil is removed and then treated at thermal facilities before much of the soil then becomes landfill. Gordon Irons, Enretech’s new Managing Director, suggests there is an alternative and more sustainable approach that could be adopted by the waste management sector. His environmental solutions group is achieving success with bioremediation projects in New Caledonia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Micronesia and Japan. He says this alternative approach is also being supported by the Australian Government’s Department of Innovation Industry, Science and Research which acknowledges the use of biotechnology is becoming recognised as a more sustainable and cost-effective soil remediation approach than traditional methods.

Many of Enretech’s bioremediation projects involve treating contaminated soils for mining, oil, and gas or petroleum companies using a sustainable soil remediation solution known as Remediator. This product is made in Australia by Enretech from cotton-waste and is 100 per cent biodegradable. It is a particulate absorbent that contains microbes that remove contamination naturally and quickly from the soil and is also effective in degrading polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

“Remediator was successfully used for an in-situ bioremediation project conducted in New Caledonia in a site heavily contaminated with hydrocarbons (190,000 ppm),” says Tony Mozak, Enretech’s General Manager. “As a result, the content of total recoverable hydrocarbons decreased by more than 95 per cent in less than 100 days.”

Onder from Novorem performs bioremediation testing on site.

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The H&H Group consists of the multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy Henry & Hymas and its two subsidiary companies, Innaco Pty Ltd and Optimal Stormwater Pty Ltd, which specialise in wastewater and water infrastructure and stormwater treatment and reuse respectively. Both subsidiaries offer full lifecycle services from auditing to planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and research. And, with the backing of almost 80 multi-disciplinary engineers from Henry & Hymas, they can deal with almost any type of water infrastructure project.

Their goal is to effectively manage wastewater treatment and stormwater quality and quantity and deliver the best long-term outcomes for construction, operation, and management of infrastructure. The H&H Group operate nationwide and internationally and has recently finished projects in China, Iraq and Malaysia.

In early 2020, Innaco was awarded the concept design of a leachate treatment system on a landfill site in Shellharbour. The site had unusually high ammonia levels, sometimes well above 1000 mg/L. Additionally, the concentration of ammonia in the leachate was very unstable due to landfill cells differing in age from 2 to 26 years old.

Because of the very high and highly fluctuating ammonia levels, the leachate could not be discharged to Sydney Water operated sewage network without treatment. As such, a new leachate treatment plant was to be built to treat the waste to reduce concentrations of key parameters, focusing on the high ammonia levels.

One of the employees of Innaco, Environmental Engineer Hamid Mehrazmay, was looking at options for a less traditional approach. His idea was to treat the leachate with introduced bacteria specialized in ammonia oxidation which, if successful, would result in:

• Construction of a smaller and more cost-effective plant;
• More efficient waste removal process;
• Reduced need for chemical usage; and
• A more efficient and environmentally friendly treatment process.

Conventional operational methods would see this process carried out using existing cultures from similar plants. However, Hamid knew that this approach may not properly and efficiently carry out the biodegradation process. So, he decided to look further afield for bacterial treatment expertise to improve the outcomes of the project.

A mutually beneficial partnership

Hamid and the team from Innaco knew that to build the most efficient and effective plant, the bacteria had to be specific for their environment. The Innaco team had the expertise to introduce the bacteria and treat the water, but they lacked the knowledge and experience to grow the specific cultures that would be right for their site and the contamination levels.

“We didn’t have the deep experience of growing bacteria, so we wanted to work alongside scientists who would be able to grow the right type of bacteria for our water”. – Hamid Mehrazmay

Having first being introduced to the Novorem team when he was working on his thesis, and being incredibly impressed with their scientific expertise, Hamid decided to reach out to Principal scientist Önder Kimyon and ask for his assistance.

His timing couldn’t have been better. At the same time, Novorem was launching a research project to produce specialised bacterial cultures to improve wastewater treatment in hopes of expanding the prominence of biodegradation within the industry.

Taking samples from the site, Önder and Hamid worked on growing different cultures together in the Novorem laboratories. The process saw Novorem take samples of the raw leachate from Shellharbour, isolate indigenous bacteria with specific functions (Ammonia Oxidising Bacteria), test their activities through bench-scale testing and molecular analysis of functional genes, and identify types of isolated strains by DNA sequencing. They grew the isolated bacteria, which have the ability to reduce ammonia concentrations, and injected it back to the raw leachate. The process worked.

“The process was amazing. Using indigenous bacteria was a great achievement, because it can save us a lot of time and money.” – Hamid Mehrazmay

During the first few weeks of testing, collectively they were able to reduce the ammonia concentration from the Shellharbour site by over 90% in 24 hours.

While their goal was 100%, their promising pilot plant testing led Hamid to believe they could use a similar approach in another project led by Innaco’s sister company Optimal Stormwater, this time at Maluga Park, Bankstown.

Expanding culture use to more Optimal projects

Another project was taken on at Maluga Park, treating nutrient-rich stormwater ponds contaminated with fecal coliforms including Escherichia coli from local runoff. A different contamination, but they saw the opportunity to use a similar bacterial approach to treat the high levels of fecal coliforms.

Across Australia, physical and chemical methods are mostly used to treat pond water, which may result in increased treatment cost and present environmental safety threats to the surrounding environment. Optimal Stormwater recognised an opportunity to use bacterial treatment as an alternative treatment solution to reduce the abundance of fecal bacteria by introducing non-pathogenic and beneficial bacteria to pond water. The overall idea was to generate a competition between beneficial and harmful bacteria for nutrients and survival and some of the introduced bacteria are also known to inhibit the growth of pathogens by enzymatic activities, which would make the entire process more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable.

“The experiments have been very successful in the first few weeks. We’ve got very good results in the lab for stormwater treatment.” – Hamid Mehrazmay

The results so far

While there are still a few weeks to go until the Shellharbour treatment plant is complete and the bacteria are ready to be introduced to the wastewater, initial test results are incredibly promising. Innaco are certain they will achieve the results they set out to accomplish:

Significantly reduce ammonia levels

Working with Novorem, Innaco has been able to reduce the level of ammonia in their samples by over 90% in 24 hours, dropping it from 1000 per milligram per litre to just 16. Their end goal is to achieve zero in 24-32 hours.

Reduce plant capital & operational costs

By having the right culture for the type of wastewater, treatment can be carried out faster and the plant tanks can be built significantly smaller due to the reduced retention time and biomass required. For example, 100 metre³ of wastewater will only require 10 metre³ of biomass, instead of 50 metre³. This facilitates a reduction in operation costs and allows for a smaller treatment facility to treat the same volumes of water, reducing overall capital costs of new facilities.

Smaller environmental footprint

By using a site-specific culture as biomass for a treatment plant, Innaco has minimized the need to add extra nutrient like sodium acetate or methanol or to add a phosphorous source, or to adjust the pH. This will reduce the waste sludge that is usually sent to landfill or incinerated.

Changing the name of the game

While it looks like Innaco and Optimal Stormwater will be able to meet all the goals they initially set, the most monumental result is perhaps that at the completion of these projects, they will have proof that they can lower the cost and the environmental impact of wastewater and stormwater treatment across Australia.

Their aim is to be able to prove the power of bacteria and advertise their skill to their clients who are looking for leading solutions just like this.

Novorem has played a huge role in the project, and Önder, Hamid and the Innaco and Optimal Stormwater team have worked together to improve the efficiency of water treatment. Hamid believes that Novorem is the best at what they do, and that their expertise cannot be matched.

“Novorem knows exactly what they are doing and our experience with them was amazing. They are the best company to work with on projects like this”.

If you would like to get in touch with the Novorem team to discuss your Wastewater or general Bioremediation needs, please reach out to us via our contact form or email us at info@novorem.com.au.

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Remediation can’t be successfully carried out without this step, and without a comprehensive assessment of all remediation options. Assessment processes are built to ensure the best approach to this phase and to ensure the best remediation outcomes.

However, many assessment processes are built around guidelines that erroneously exclude some options too early in the process – predominantly, bioremediation. This can lead to missed opportunities, sub-optimal or even inappropriate remediation being carried out.

It is not those carrying out the assessment but more the processes themselves that are missing the mark when it comes to bioremediation. Understanding when and why a remediation option should be excluded and ensuring the options assessment is being carried out appropriately can make a big difference to final outcomes and ensuring the right remediation option is deployed.

The problem with focusing on guaranteed compatibility

Bioremediation is still a relatively new remediation option in Australia but is one that has been used extensively and confidentially for some time in other countries. While not suitable for 100% of sites or necessarily the complete solution, it is a compatible and highly effective option in many situations and treatment trains.

So, why is bioremediation still not being widely used or prioritised as a valid remediation option? Predominantly, it comes down to premature exclusion during remediation options assessments.

While there is not a set process for carrying out a remediation options assessment, most individual processes are built on or guided by national/international guidelines – specifically, FRTR or CRC CARE guidelines. While it can seem like a sensible place to start, these guidelines don’t necessarily give the most comprehensive information about remediation options. For example, the CRC CARE guideline for Remediation Options Assessment does not include bioremediation as an option for groundwater remediation. Period.

In the FRTR technology screening process, bioremediation is included as an option for groundwater, but the matrix states that feasibility is site and contaminant specific, and that further analysis is needed to determine compatibility. Therefore, it will often receive a low ranking and be disregarded in favour of those options that are guaranteed to suit despite inferior performance in subsequent cost/benefit and sustainability analyses.

Going for an option guaranteed to work may sound like a legitimate way to shortlist remediation options. However, while these options might be guaranteed to remove contamination, they’re not guaranteed to meet client needs or parameters when it comes to other factors – like cost or environmental impact.

Guidelines are guides, not gospel

While bioremediation might not be the most appropriate option every single time, excluding it too early should be avoided for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, it is only looking at limited elements such as compatibility with site and contaminant.

Secondly, after shortlisting, all options are looked at more in-depth with a multi-criteria analysis or cost-benefit analysis – comparing remediation options requires comparison across a range of different parameters. So, while bioremediation requires further analysis to determine compatibility, this step will be carried out with all shortlisted options anyway – adding little extra work or effort.

But it is after compatibility testing that is becomes really clear why you need to strongly consider bioremediation as a contender and shortlist option.

When compared across a range of different parameters, bioremediation stacks up incredibly favourably, rating high on areas including:

• Community and regulator approval
• Cost-effectiveness
• Social acceptance
• Environmentally friendly and sustainable

It’s also important to remember bioremediation has a high compatibility with most site conditions and any pollutant known to be biodegradable – it is viable in 80-90% of such sites.

Simplify the shortlist & analysis process with expert help

The purpose of a remediation assessment is to determine the right remediation solution for any given site. This goes beyond what will remove the contamination – it includes factors like cost, relevant approvals, local impact and environmental sustainability. Disregarding bioremediation upfront can result in missed opportunities to meet many other factors and to achieve a more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable remediation solution.

Beyond early exclusion during an assessment, there is one other perceived hurdle to bioremediation – and that’s knowledge. Luckily, thanks to growing local expertise, bioremediation is no longer a “rabbit hole” of unknowns.

Bioremediation is widely practised on a global scale – and intensively so in certain parts of the world. More recently, local Australian expertise and support are available to assist with everything from assistance with options assessment to site analysis to deployment.

If or when you’re deciding whether there’s too much uncertainty for bioremediation to be an option for more detailed analysis, local experts can carry out quick tests and find out whether it should be retained as a shortlist option or not.

This is one of the expert services we offer at Novorem. Novorem are locally based leading experts in bioremediation, with wide experience undertaking site testing, analysis and implementation in the Australian market.

If you would like to improve your assessment option process or include bioremediation more regularly in your assessments but don’t have the expertise to make the judgement on-site applicability, we can help. If you are interested in exploring bioremediation and determining the benefits for your site, get in touch with here or call me on +61 2 4869 3261.

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But there is another option: bioremediation, or in-situ treatment. It’s not a new practice, and it has already been widely accepted in other countries. But Australia has been a little slower on the uptake, and many are still dubious as to whether it can compare to the results of physical remediation.

So, how does bioremediation really compare?

When it comes to choosing a remediation option, there are often three main driving factors:

• How much will it cost?
• How effectively will it remove contamination?
• How long will the process take?

Here, we’ll look at each of these factors – cost, time and effectiveness – to determine how removal and in-situ remediation practices compare, and how you can ensure you’re choosing the right option to meet your parameters.

Remediation vs. Bioremediation

Cost

When it comes to the cost of remediation options, physical removal of contamination can far outweigh it’s in situ counterpart.

The cost of pump and treat or excavation remediation can quickly add up. Beyond the often-high costs of labour and equipment (and site shutdown, if required), physical removal options are highly energy-intensive, which drives the cost substantially.

Excavation is an especially costly exercise, and risks spreading contaminants (which can lead to extra costs, fines and logistical drama).

Bioremediation compares very favourably with respect to cost. There are upfront environmental diagnostic costs to determine what the native microflora of a site looks like and what biogeochemical processes this indigenous microbiota can catalyse. These are on a par with analytical chemistry analyses for site characterisation and can piggyback off existing site characterisation infrastructure (monitoring wells) and field sampling activities. A client may also want bench tests to be sure a remediation strategy is applicable to their site. The costs of implementing bioremediation approaches (biostimulation with chemical amendments or bioaugmentation with live cultures) are relatively trivial once injection and monitoring well infrastructure is in place and when compared to the traditional dig and dump remediation methods.

Time

Typically, comprehensive environmental diagnostic work for bioremediation can be completed in 3 months. Depending on the site (and the mass of light or dense non-aqueous phase liquids), clean-up exploiting bioremediation can take up to a year. But once conditions are appropriate, microorganisms will be working 24/7 with minimal maintenance of bioremediation systems until the contaminants are gone.

In some circumstances, remediation work is time sensitive due to high risk of contamination spreading to sensitive receptors (including water sources or environments home to protected or endangered species.) In these situations, you might have no choice but to extract contaminated material physically.

However, bioremediation used post-excavation or after NAPL removal can deliver better results than physical or chemical removal alone. Bioremediation can be a perfect polish to take care of residual or diffuse aqueous phase contamination. In urgent cases where pollutant movement has been physically contained to minimise immediate risks, bioremediation can be used to destroy the contaminant.

Effectiveness

As previously mentioned, bioremediation requires extensive testing and analysis before stimulants or cultures are introduced to a contaminated site. This analysis means that if a site is deemed viable (which 80-90% are), bioremediation will have a near 100% success rate.

This is due to analysis results ensuring the appropriate cultures are introduced to the environment in the right amount, and will continue to be active until all contaminants are removed. Bioremediation restores the ecosystem by destroying pollutants, enabling it to return to a ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ natural state with minimal disruption.

Physical removal can, if done well, be just as effective. But it does carry some extra challenges:

• Excavation can easily miss areas of contamination, leaving contaminated samples behind
• There are limitations to the pump and treat method if the system is dependent on solubilisation/dissolution of contaminants
• There is a diminishing return on pump and treat remediation investment, as its impact diminishes year after year, while remaining at the same cost

It’s important to remember that containment or excavation does not destroy pollutants, but simply stops it reaching sensitive receptors. Such solutions require management potentially indefinitely, so it is a future burden that can be costly and difficult to sustain.

Other factors to consider

While cost, time and effectiveness are often driving factors in remediation choice, there are other vital factors that should be considered, including the social and environmental impact of remediation.

As environmental issues continue to play an influential role in the community and corporate industries, more organisations have been looking for more sustainable remediation options. The energy consumption, gas and chemical emissions, and resulting environmental footprint of traditional remediation methods is impacting on companies’ social license and efforts to ‘go greener’.

The National Environment Protection Measure (a Federal guidance document for contaminated site characterisation and remediation) has published a remediation hierarchy for groundwater, which states in-situ remediation should be the first option (where feasible).

Getting the best remediation results

When we look at the results of the comparison, we can see both bioremediation and traditional remediation methods are effective (even though excavation does present some challenges). Bioremediation is nearly always the more cost-effective option, but it also requires more time.

While this comparison doesn’t prove to find a “best” method (that will ultimately depend on each decontamination project, and be affected by budget, site access, contamination risks, etc.), it does prove that bioremediation more than matches the abilities of traditional remediation methods.

For those projects without strict parameters, bioremediation should be considered as a first option. And, if physical removal proves to be the best option for a particular site, bioremediation should be strongly considered in conjunction as a follow-up method.

Learn more about making bioremediation fit for your project here.

Despite its many benefits and applicability to many projects, bioremediation is still an emerging remediation option in Australia, making expertise difficult to source. Novorem are locally based leading experts in bioremediation, with wide experience undertaking site testing, analysis and implementation in the Australian market.

If you are interested in exploring bioremediation and determining the benefits for your site, get in touch with me via email or call me on +61 2 4869 3261

The post Comparing Remediation & Bioremediation: Which is best, and when? appeared first on Novorem.

The increase in demand has come with an increase in companies offering profiling services. However, not all providers offer the same service or analysis – and this can impact your decision making.

It’s one thing to sequence DNA to get a community profile, it’s another thing entirely to interpret those DNA sequences. To use community profiling successfully in bioremediation (or any other process driven by a community of microorganisms), data analysis and interpretation is just as important as the quality of data generation.

The what’s and why’s of community profiling

We are seeing a growing appreciation and understanding of the importance of microbiology, and that it has frequently had a positive impact on the remediation and health of degraded soil and water environments. But while people understand that microbial communities are the foundation of environmental health, for many that’s as far as their knowledge goes.

So, what is community profiling?

A collection of microbial cells belonging to the same species is called a population. A mixture of populations is known as a community. The functional attributes of a community, such as degrading a pollutant, emerge from the biological composition of the community. To predict function we therefore need to know what species are present, how abundant each is and what chemical transformations each species catalyses. This is why community profiling is undertaken. This is done by:

1. Extracting DNA from the community in an environmental sample.
2. Making multiple copies of ‘name tag’ genes present.
3. DNA sequencing the ‘name tag’ genes.
4. Quality checking the sequence data.
5. Matching the DNA sequences to ‘name tag’ databases.

This gives you your community profile, which is like a fingerprint of the community, showing a list of species that are present and their relative abundances.

Why do it?

Community profiling is done in order to determine the right treatment for a contamination by determining the microbiological make-up and therefore how it can be manipulated to produce the desired result. In remediation instances, looking at a community profile can tell you about the condition of the environment and whether that’s appropriate for the biological degradation of a pollutant.

But this is where it gets tricky, and the choice of analysis and provider matters. DNA sequence data alone won’t tell you the best way to use the information it has produced.

Without the proper analysis and interpretation, it’s easy to make mistakes in the response, wasting time and money and increasing the likelihood of an unsuccessful result.

There’s more to community profiling than just the DNA sequence data

One of the biggest advantages of some of the community profiling services emerging from increased demand is the speed in which they can return results. In some cases, there is a turnaround as quick as a week.

Logically, faster data production provides for more responsive decision making, which makes these services highly desirable. But it also presents some questions around the depth and accuracy of the analysis, and how effective the steps taken based on it will be.

To actually be able to make use of the profiling to carry out remediation works, you need two things:

Expert data curation

Microbial community profiling has been evolving rapidly for years. Molecular microbial ecologists have grown accustomed to it. Change is the only constant. New approaches and software for processing gene sequence data are always emerging and the databases used to match DNA sequences to microorganisms are ever-expanding. The best and most recent software and databases generate the most robust output for interpretation.

Experience, expertise and access to the latest tools and research is important for making sure the analysis is as accurate and informative as possible.

Expert data interpretation

When it comes to community profiling, if you are just getting the sequence data generated without fully interpreting it, then you’re missing out on all the information, and hence value, you could be extracting from it.

Interpretation of high-quality community profiles generates a holistic picture from the data by looking not only at the bacteria that you’re interested in, but all the other bacteria present. This gives you an understanding of the health or condition of that system. Are your pollutant degrading species in the company of friends (symbiosis) or foe (competition or antagonists)? Does your community profile reflect aerobic conditions when you’re after an anaerobic process? Is your community packed with bacteria that adversely impact pH?

The right next step

One of the main purposes of profiling in bioremediation is to determine if the contaminated site is compatible with bioremediation methods and what the next step is to achieving sustainable remediation outcomes.

For example, if you seek to promote an anaerobic or reductive biochemical transformation (for example with organochlorines at depth in groundwater), but profiling reveals your community is dominated by aerobic bacteria, then you know that the site is not in the right state to break down the pollutants.

Solution

It’s important to remember that the community profile is the vehicle to the outcome, not the outcome itself. Like many things, the cost or time of the service is directly related to the quality it provides.

Interpretation is one of the most important parts of community profiling, and technically what makes the practice worth the time and effort. Yet many providers will shy away from offering interpretation because there might be liabilities associated with it.

To get all the services you require and get the best chance of achieving the right outcomes, it can come down to your provider and the service they offer. It’s important to look for:

• High-end microbiology expertise
• Access and knowledge to the latest literature, software and databases
• Understanding of the next step processes

By prioritising these factors, you can almost guarantee a high-quality community profiling analysis and interpretation, and be sure that the next step you take will achieve your desired outcome.

Novorem is a bioremediation company that offers community profiling as part of our services. We retain established state-of-the-art sequencing facilities to get the data (with access to the latest bioinformatics) and because of our experience, expertise and deep understanding of microbiology, we have never been afraid to interpret and make recommendations from our community profiling data.

Our experience and expertise in looking at and understanding groundwater and soil communities also puts us in a unique position to provide guidance in terms of potential for bioremediation or what actions should be taken to promote it.

To find out more about our community profiling services, click here to contact us.

Author bio:

Önder Kimyon is the principal scientist of Novorem Pty Ltd and is a renowned expert in environmental science and microbiology.

Önder and the Novorem Team have made award-winning contributions to environmental research and biotechnology development, including the biological degradation of contaminants of concern.

If you would like to know more about microbiology or bioremediation, click here to contact Önder.

The post Getting the most out of community profiling appeared first on Novorem.

Site conditions need to meet certain specifications to ensure success (sometimes these can be manipulated, sometimes not), and the science behind bioremediation is highly technical. It’s not just a matter of buying a solution (a culture) that promises to fix your problem (contamination).

This came to attention recently when we were asked for a culture to bioremediate Carbon Tetrachloride (CTC). This culture doesn’t exist – there are no known bacteria that can metabolise CTC. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t exploit biological activity to degrade it.

The hefty scientific and technical intricacies and misinformation about the scope of capabilities can stop some people from pursuing bioremediation. But it shouldn’t.

To highlight the full potential of bioremediation, its capabilities and how it can work in a wide variety of situations, we’ll use the recent experience of the bioremediation of CTC to demonstrate.

The challenges of Carbon Tetrachloride

A site contaminated with Carbon Tetrachloride (CTC) was looking for a way to safely perform groundwater remediation. But that’s no easy ask.

Carbon Tetrachloride (CTC) is a highly toxic compound, once used as a chemical solvent, and also widely as a refrigerant. A cause of cancer, acute toxicity and organ failure, it’s no wonder it’s listed in the US EPA top 50 pollutants. While no longer used, CTC still exists in our environment. Government regulations state that CTC must be kept below certain levels to be considered safe, so viable methods to remove it from sites are in demand.

It’s unsurprising that those affected by CTC would look to bioremediation for a possible solution, as the compound can be eliminated without physical removal that risks further contamination.

However, no bacteria have been found that can break down CTC in normal groundwater conditions. Organochlorine respiring bacteria (ORB) would usually be used, yet no strain that can metabolise CTC has been found.

Hence, when people go looking for a culture to help rid them of CTC, they will fail to find one – it does not exist. But, with the right bioremediation expertise and knowledge, CTC can indeed be broken down naturally.

How do you bioremediate a compound that can’t be metabolised?

While ORB is unable to metabolise CTC in its natural form, there is a way to work around this using a compound that is already omnipresent in groundwater – sulphate.

Sulphate alone will not react with CTC. However, sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) respires sulphate, turning it into sulphide. By introducing SRB into CTC contaminated groundwater, it will turn sulphate into sulphide, which then reacts chemically with CTC to turn it into the organochlorine daughter product chloroform (CF).

In its new form, CF can be metabolised by ORB, removing it from the groundwater. Novorem supplies a Dehalobacter based chloroform degrading bioaugmentation culture isolated by Professor Mike Manefield’s research team at the University of NSW.

By lowering the redox potential (ORP) of the groundwater and feeding the SRB with a slow-release electron donor, you can remove CTC. This in turn relieves inhibition CTC imposes on microbial activity in the subsurface environment, enabling ORB to clean up not only chloroform but co-contaminants such as perchloroethene or 1,2-dichloroethane.

Removing CTC is not only important to meet legal obligations, but will improve the overall condition of your groundwater.  Now that removal can be achieved through bioremediation, there are further benefits available to your operation. The minimal disruption to the site means a quicker, cleaner and more manageable remediation process that also minimises cross-contamination risks and reduces costs. As our community seeks more sustainable remediation options, our technologies rise to the challenge.

CTC is not commonly present in groundwater and is generally only a problem for chemical manufacturing sites. However, this example stands to demonstrate the wider capabilities of bioremediation, and the scientific expertise behind it.

Remediation is not always about one contaminant. There are flow on effects that have to be considered, as demonstrated with the inactivity of ORB in the presence of CTC.

Bioremediation isn’t always possible, but shouldn’t immediately be dismissed as an option before engaging experts. Especially considering bioremediation offers considerable cost savings and minimised disruption and risk of further contamination to surrounding environments when compared to traditional remediation techniques.

If you are interested in further exploring bioremediation, or would like more information about Novorem’s expertise and capabilities, click here to contact Novorem.

Author Bio:

Önder Kimyon is the principal scientist of Novorem Pty Ltd and is a renowned expert in environmental science and microbiology.

Önder and the Novorem Team have made award-winning contributions to environmental research and biotechnology development, including the biological degradation of contaminants of concern.

If you would like to know more about microbiology or bioremediation, click here to contact Önder.

References:

Koenig JC, Lee MJ, Manefield M (2012) Successful microcosm demonstration of a strategy for biodegradation of a mixture of carbon tetrachloride and perchloroethene harnessing sulfate reducing and dehalorespiring bacteria. J Hazard Mater 220, 169-175.

Matthew Lee, Adrian Low, Olivier Zemb, Joanna Koenig, Astrid Michaelsen and Mike Manefield (2012) Complete chloroform dechlorination by organochlorine respiration and fermentation. Environmental Microbiology. 14, 883-894.

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