SBIR Phase II: Remediation of recalcitrant and emerging environmental organic contaminants of concern using bacterial approaches

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is addressing the critical societal need to remediate toxic organic pollutants in soils and sediments. The proposed technology would enable environmental goals to be met on many contaminated sites whose remediation is currently limited by high costs. The technology would contribute to the re-development of many billions of dollars in real estate by returning properties to productive and appropriate use. The hybrid bacterial augmentation and thermal technology provides a model for additional systems with other bacteria uniquely suited to applications in emerging contaminants and water treatment. This project proposes to commercialize a bacterial treatment for the degradation of organic contaminants of concern in environmental matrices such as soils and sediments. The thermally-enhanced bioaugmentation technology evaluated in Phase I is based on a novel bacterial strain and its enzymes that function at elevated temperatures and are capable of degrading a variety of ring based, organic pollutants, including chlorinated forms difficult to remediate. Pilot tests on soils contaminated with Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) demonstrated degradation for both TPH and for the heavier poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PaHs) on the EPA's list of priority pollutants. Phase II goals are to expand these initial studies to the full commercial scale of 100s to 1000s of tons of soil by working with established environmental engineering firms with extensive experience in thermal treatments of large volumes. To fully commercialize this new technology, the production capacity for the biological agents also will be scaled up by over an order of magnitude. The technology will be applied both ex-situ and in-situ as the process evolves. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.