Bioremediation Technology and Services Market: Technology & Application Outline

By Sukanya Mukherjee

Bioremediation is a futuristic technology that can be used simultaneously with different chemical and physical treatments to completely manage diverse environmental pollutants. It is a sustainable approach to environmental pollution management. Therefore, there is a rapidly increasing need for research in this area. According to Inkwood Research, the global bioremediation technology and services market is predicted to record an 8.47% CAGR between the forecast years 2022 and 2030.

Furthermore, more efforts are needed to generate a harmonious interaction between the fate and behavior of the environmental contaminants. In addition, more developments are required to understand these contaminants’ impact on the performance and assortment of suitable bioremediation techniques that can sustain the effective operations and monitoring of a bioremediation process.

Bioremediation Technology: Leading Commercial Applications

Environmental pollution has risen exponentially due to increased human activities in industrialization, energy reservoirs, and unsafe agricultural practices. Among the pollutants produced concerning public health and the environment are nuclear wastes, heavy metals, greenhouse gases, pesticides, and hydrocarbons.

Due to its eco-friendly features, bioremediation has proven effective as well as reliable as it helps remove pollution in commercial sectors like mining, farming, etc.

Accordingly, it is widely adopted across the following sectors:

• Mining

Bioremediation efforts have been proved successful in detoxifying old mine pits and quarries. For instance, Cemvita Factory’s technology uses biomimicry or synthetic biology to improve the metabolic capacity of environment-friendly microorganisms for carbon dioxide utilization. These microorganisms may be used for different purposes, including treating heavy metal or acidic contamination and utilizing and sequestering carbon dioxide.

• Farming

Bioremediation is used in farms where over-fertilizing occurs due to chemical fertilizers or animal waste products. It involves introducing microorganisms that biodegrade or sequester different contaminants. Also, there are some microbial inoculants for introducing beneficial fungi and bacteria to soil and seeds. Plants grown as a cover or catch crops can also be used to break down or remove various soil-borne contaminants. Soil amendments can change the mix of organisms.

• Industries

Industrial sites use chemicals in production, which spill or discharge most of the time. These pollutants are biologically neutralized using bioremediation. Bioremediation can be performed using soil microbial consortia, microbial metabolic diversity, etc., in the case of the industries. Some of the industrial wastes are radioactive. Therefore, phytoremediation can be used for the decontamination of radioactive sites. This method uses plants to remove or transfer the radionuclides in the contaminated soil and helps treat large-scale radionuclide pollution.

Popular Bioremediation Technologies used across Commercial Applications

For decades, there has been friction between commercial institutions that release pollutants or own polluted sites and those who wish ro remediate contaminated sites to curtail the release of pollutants. The polluters have generally been businesses most interested in maximizing profits by controlling costs. Also, government agencies with other national interest priorities, like national defense and war efforts, add to the problem.

Therefore, most commercial institutions undertake various bioremediation technologies for environmental monitoring. These technologies include fungal remediation, bioreactors, biostimulation, phytoremediation, bioaugmentation, and land-based treatments.

• Phytoremediation

Phytoremediation uses plants to degrade, eliminate, or transfigure contaminants into less hazardous chemicals. This process involves the removal of metals, pesticides, raw petroleum, solvents, explosives and other pollutants from water, soils, and vaporous contaminants. When plants accumulate enough toxins, they are then harvested and disposed of.

One of the main advantages of using plants in the remediation process is that some precious metals can accumulate in some plants through bioaccumulation, which can be recovered after remediation. This process is known as phytomining. Other advantages include low installation and maintenance cost, erosion prevention, conservation of soil structure, large-scale operation, and metal leaching.

As per our analysis, the bioremediation technology and services market by phytoremediation is expected to surge with a 9.07% CAGR during 2022-2030.

• Bioaugmentation

Bioaugmentation is used to add indigenous microbes and exogenous species to the site to increase the degradation rate. This process works in conjunction with both biosparging and bioventing applications. Bioaugmentation converts pollutants to by-products like carbon dioxide and water together with some metabolic intermediates that serve as critical nutrients for cell development.

Further, bioaugmentation effectively removes high molecular weight polyaromatic hydrocarbons from the contaminated sample. Bioaugmentation using engineered microbes can be introduced as a secondary or tertiary treatment to facilitate recalcitrant compound degradation. The consistent advancement seen with bioaugmentation technology is considered the most suitable approach for field trials and future research, thereby driving the segment’s growth.

• Bioreactor

Bioreactors are vessels in which raw materials are transformed into specific products following a series of biological reactions. They provide optimal growth conditions for bioremediation. The bioreactors-based process efficiently controls temperature, pH, aeration, substrate, agitation, and inoculum concentrations, reducing bioremediation time. The ability to control and manipulate process parameters in bioreactors is another advantage that benefits the segment’s growth.

The flexibility of bioreactor designs allows for minimizing abiotic losses while maximizing biological degradation. In addition, genetically modified microorganisms can be introduced for bioaugmentation as bioreactors are enclosed systems. Following that, the organisms are destroyed, the soils are treated, and returned to the field for landfilling. Therefore, various advantages of bioreactors make them a preferred choice for bioremediation, driving the segment growth during the forecast period.

All in All

Re-balancing can take a long time in highly polluted sites. If the optimum conditions are not balanced, the microbial action becomes too slow or can die altogether. The need for agencies to implement technologies to ensure regulatory compliance is driving the global bioremediation technology and services market growth. The performance of the systems can be ensured by the quality of the site restored and the time taken to do so without any environmental impact.