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| Technology of Biosurfactants for the Development of Environmental Remediation Processes |
| Verónica Leticia Colin* |
| Process Pilot Plant and Microbial (PROIMI), CONICET, Av Belgrano and Passage Home, 4000 Tucumán, Argentina |
| *Corresponding author: |
Verónica Leticia Colin
Process Pilot Plant and
Microbial (PROIMI)
CONICET, Av Belgrano and Passage Home
4000
Tucumán, Argentina
Tel: + 54-381-4344888 Ext. 26
Fax: + 54-381-4344887
E-mail: veronicacollin@yahoo.com.ar |
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| Received April 19, 2012; Accepted April 20, 2012; Published April 23, 2012 |
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| Citation: Colin VL (2012) Technology of Biosurfactants for the Development of
Environmental Remediation Processes. Ferment Technol 1:e109. doi:10.4172/2167-7972.1000e109 |
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| Copyright: © 2012 Colin VL. This is an open-access article distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited. |
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| The world is now confronted with serious problems of
environmental contamination, which demand immediate solutions.
The extensive production and use of hydrocarbons has resulted in
widespread environmental contamination by these chemicals, which
due to their toxicity on living organisms, are considered as proprietary
pollutants. On the other hand, industrial and mining activities are
important for economic development. However, these activities
represent the main sources of heavy metal contamination, which
provide unique challenges for their remediation, as they cannot be
degraded into innocuous products. Although a variety of remediation
technologies that include, mostly physicochemical methods, are
available to address contamination with hydrocarbon and heavy metal,
these processes have several disadvantages including the high cost
and the risk of secondary environmental pollution. The situation is
more critical in developing countries where there is no legislation to
respect. As a result, it remains important to develop new techniques
for reduction of these pollutants to acceptable levels, but at more
manageable costs. |
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| The microbial remediation, known as bioremediation, offers high
specificity in the removal of particular pollutants while also offering
operational flexibility. Scientific evidence numerous indicates that
the microbial activities can be exploited in the bioremediation of
organic- and metal-contaminated sites. Thus, the comprehensive
overview of advances in this field provides a very encouraging picture.
For example, technologies involving microorganisms are successfully
applied to waste streams such as sewage sludge, industrial effluents,
and mine water. However, the use of microbial products instead
of whole-cell microbes for environmental remediation could have
unquestionable advantages, since microorganisms do not need to have
the ability to survive in the contaminated sites. Microbial products as
some enzymes and/or certain exopolimers as the biosurfactants, are
among the constituents of the first cellular defence line against diverse
toxics. Biosurfactants are a structurally diverse group of surface-active
substances produced by microorganisms, which facilitate the uptake
of water-insoluble substrates. They can be used therefore, to release hydrocarbons pollutants characterized by low solubility, from soil
and other media. There are also reports in the literature regarding the
removal of heavy metals from wastewater and soils using biological
agents as biosurfactants. They can increase desorption of the soilbound
metals and facilitate their transport through the soil matrix, in
a process called washing. Compared to their synthetically produced
counterparts whom it is characterized by a high production costs
that make them unaffordable for use in larger ecosystems, surfactants
of microbial origin are more economically viable. In addition, their
greater biodegradability and their reduced toxicity are in agreement
with the global trend of replacing synthetic compounds by those
derivates of natural source. However, some reports indicate that under
certain circumstances biosurfactants can be toxic to the environment. |
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| In view of the wide range of technological applications of the
biosurfactants, researchers have emphasized the key parameters
affecting their production in terms of higher yields and lower production
costs. Many studies suggest that the inclusion of hydrocarbons in the
growth medium markedly increases the synthesis of biosurfactants, but
this also creates a challenge in terms of subsequent separation of the
compound produced. Therefore, the main strategy to achieve this are
through assessment of the appropriate organism, and the use of cheap
or waste substrates to lower the initial raw material costs involved
in the process, including optimization of the culture conditions and
cost-effective separation processes to maximize recovery of the final
product. Another important aspect regarding biological remediation
technologies is the use of biosurfactant in the process on a large scale.
Little is also known about the potential of biosurfactant production by
microorganisms in situ, since the most of the described studies were
done under laboratory conditions. |
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| In summary, there are many unexplored edges on this topic. It is
expected that the concerted efforts of the lines of research involved
provide valuable progress to the short term. However, progressive
entry of biosurfactants derived mainly from renewable raw materials
into the market is, at present, a concrete fact. |
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