Biotecnologías para el remedio ambiental

Resumen

Whereas soil incineration perturbs the environment, and adsorption and stripping techniques do not destroy pollutants, the biotechnology promises to deliver important strategies for cleaning up the environment. The principle of the biological method is that microorganisms degrade organic pollutants and, in many cases, can use these compounds as growth substrate. By doing so, they detoxify or mineralize the pollutants to innocuous products. Bioremediation technologies use shotgun approaches, ultramicrobacteria systems, methanotrophs, bioluminescent bioreporter genes into bacteria, extremozymes, white rot fungi and supermicroalgi. Faced with the question of risk and despite the stringent regulatory requirements from EPA, European Union policies have contributed greatly to convincing that reasonable public health standards made feasible almost the types of bioremediation. In an economical view, the biotechnologies are less expensive than the physical and chemical methods and the companies are adopting them as their first choice.