Bacterial usage for removing oil spills

-
Hi Folks!! Follow me on Instagram LAB IN THE BOX

BACTERIAL USAGE FOR REMOVING OIL SPILLS


Petroleum based products are major source of energy for industry and daily life. Due to it's high demand, the competition for oil trade is also high. Certainly the leaks and accidents occur on a regular basis. The latest one being the oil spill in Mauritius on July 25, which lead to lead to leakage of about 1400 tonnes of oil into the Island waters. Oil spills and its impacts on the environment are a growing concern for scientists and environmentalists. These disasters lead to huge loss of biodiversity and economy. Impact of oil spills on environment can be severe.
  1. The oil floats on water and prevent sunlight to pass through them, which kills the plants and animals which need sunlight.
  2. The oil can also clog the blowholes of whales and dolphins, leading to suffocation and death.
  3. Seabird's feather gets sticky and heavy, making them unable to fly.
  4. It destroys the insulating ability of fur - bearing mammals, leading them to die out of cold.
  5. Animals and birds might get poisoned if they consume the oil.
The methods currently used to remove the oil from ocean are either too expensive or catastrophic. Burning the oil is cheaper but may kill millions of animals beneath the fire. Other techniques are laborious and generally costly. Interestingly, a group of bacteria can help us sort out this issue. They are known as Oil- Eating bacteria and this method is called Bioremediation. The bacteria include Alcanivorax borkumensis, Pseudomonas putida, P. fluorescens, P. aeruginosa, Bacillus ubtilis, Acinetobacter lwoffi, and few others. They are non pathogenic, mostly rod - shaped marine bacteria, found in almost every ocean. These bacteria have an enzyme called Hydroxylases which can breakdown components of petroleum from water and soil.
They were proven successful by removing 80% of oil components in laboratory conditions. They remove Benzene, toluene, and xylene from the oil or petroleum. The hydrocarbons thus released are utilized by the bacteria as a source of energy and they replicates rapidly into millions. Scientists are developing a new strain of bacteria which can degrade more efficiently. With the effect of new strain, the bacteria can solely remove the oil from ocean and beach. Deploying these bacteria right after the spillage can prevent the widespread distribution of oil and can save lives.

PETROLEUM BUGS  are a type of bacteria which will  the contaminate petroleum. It will survive by consuming carbon and hydrogen. Since it contaminates the petroleum, it will cause damage to vehicle's motor. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

China's First ever CRISPR Cas9 system Patent!

-
Image
Hi Folks!! Follow our blog on  Instagram China’s patent and trademark office has upheld a key patent within the portfolio of CRISPR/Cas9 intellectual property belonging to Nobel Laureate Emmanuelle Charpentier, The Regents of the University of California, and University of Vienna (known collectively as CVC), and licensed for commercial use through ERS Genomics. Dublin-based ERS Genomics said the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has upheld Patent No. CN201380038920.6, “Methods and Compositions for RNA-guided Target DNA Modification and for RNA-guided Transcription Regulation”. ToolGen claims that it was the  world’s first  filer of patents covering gene editing in eukaryotic cells using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. “The decision by the CNIPA fully upholding the patent further demonstrates its validity and value as part of the patent collection for use of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology,” ERS Genomics stated in announcing the Chinese decision recently. The CVC patents ha
Read more

XPOSAT - STUDY ABOUT BLACKHOLE(A GIST)

-
Image
Hi Folks!! Follow our blog on Instagram  LAB IN THE BOX XPOSAT - STUDY ABOUT BLACKHOLE (A GIST) Last year was a huge success with Chandrayaan-3. Our ISRO Scientist did a lot of unexpected acts and surprised us all. On January 1st, when this year started, India has proved to be a leading country in the world, not only on land, but also in the sky.  There are a lot of things in our universe that we don't understand. One thing that we don't understand is black holes. These black holes exist in a lot of places in space. From the fact that we are in a black hole, to the fact that all the earth and sun will disappear one day in a black hole, this is something that we don't understand. From the biggest scientist to the modern technology scientist, everyone is looking at this black hole as a mystery. To study this, India has launched a special Mission on January 1st named XPoSat( X-ray Polarimeter Satellite). On January 1st, India launched 10 different satellites throug
Read more

History of Biotechnology

-
Image
HISTORY OF BIOTECHNOLOGY: People have been harnessing biological processes to improve their quality of life for some 10,000 years, beginning with the first agricultural communities. Approximately 6,000 years ago, humans began to tap the biological processes of microorganisms in order to make bread, alcoholic beverages, and cheese and to preserve dairy products. But such processes are not what is meant today by biotechnology, a term first widely applied to the molecular and cellular technologies that began to emerge in the 1960s and ’70s. A fledgling “biotech” industry began to coalesce in the mid- to late 1970s, led by Genentech, a pharmaceutical company established in 1976 by Robert A. Swanson and Herbert W. Boyer to commercialize the recombinant DNA technology pioneered by Boyer, Paul Berg, and Stanley N. Cohen. Early companies such as Genentech, Amgen, Biogen, Cetus, and Genex began by manufacturing genetically engineered substances primarily for medical and environmental uses. For
Read more