Enzymatic microbial degradation: In-process bioremediation of organic waste-containing aqueous solvents

Chemical waste streams are an environmental problem facing all chemical industries. It is shown that using live microbes to remediate oil contaminated aqueous waste streams is an example of green chemistry. Commercially-available microbes have been successfully used in military garages and metal finishing companies to continuously remediate cleaning solutions. The potential application of this technology to petrochemical plants, chemical plants, refineries, food processing plants, marine barges, truck washes, wood treating plants and ground water remediation applications are explored. In our work we have examined the effectiveness of microbes to remediate cleaning solutions. The microbes can remediate crude oil, oils, solvents, greases, amines, cresol, phenols, and others hydrocarbon compounds. The systems and our results are described.