Environmental

Bioremediation

Restoring the Environment

Bioremediation

Bioremediation harnesses the power of living organisms to detoxify and restore environments contaminated by pollutants. In bioremediation, microorganisms degrade or neutralize soil decontamination, work in wastewater treatment, and clean oil spills and air pollutants.

Soil Decontamination

Bioremediation microorganisms use pollutants in soil environments as energy sources and nutrients for their growth and metabolic processes. These microorganisms may be naturally occurring or genetically engineered to improve their efficiency in breaking down the target pollutants.

Wastewater Treatment

Industrial activities often release toxic heavy metals into waterways, posing significant risks to ecosystems and human health. Bioremediation harnesses the natural abilities of microorganisms or plants to degrade, absorb, or transform contaminants.

Oil Spill Clean Up

Bioremediation leverages microorganisms' metabolic capabilities to break down oil spill components into harmless byproducts like carbon dioxide and water. Columbus Instruments’ Micro-Oxymax has aided bioremediation efforts in numerous oil spill incidents worldwide, including the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.

Air Pollutants Clean Up

Deploys specific bacterial strains to decompose and detoxify pollutants, including harmful chemicals.

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How the Micro-Oxymax Can Benefit Bioremediation Efforts

The Columbus Instruments’ Micro-Oxymax system is a highly adaptable general-purpose closed-circuit respirometer. The system monitors the concentration of gas contained within an enclosed head space into which the material being monitored is respiring. Periodic sensing of the gas concentration, along with an equally accurate measurement of the volume of the head space, allows calculations of incremental and accumulated values for consumption and production. The Micro-Oxymax design principle provides a sensing threshold near 2 x 10-7 liter per hour. The system can be configured for single or multiple gas sensing. Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and a variety of other gases can be sensed over specially selected ranges to meet almost any application.

The Micro-Oxymax is a modular system that can support testing biodegradability in all environments. An initial configuration for basic investigations can be expanded later to include additional gases and/or chambers. The software automates many aspects of the test with a single set of sensors to calibrate, it takes only a few minutes to begin a test. The system automatically compensates for changes in pressure and temperature and converts evolved carbon dioxide to STP for easy conversion into milligrams.

Research using the Micro-Oxymax for Bioremediation Efforts