Environmental biotechnology

The gray biotechnology or environmental biotechnology includes all biotechnological process for the treatment of drinking water, purification of waste water, treatment of waste, contaminated soil and waste air or exhaust gas cleaning.

In the biotechnology progressive specialization takes place, so that more and more sub-disciplines, here traditionally associated with additional color designations, arise, especially in the border areas. In the field of environmental technology, there is also a brown biotechnology that is specifically concerned with soil remediation.

Biotechnology is an increasingly important part of environmental protection, for example in wastewater treatment, waste treatment, soil remediation or exhaust air purification. Even at a time when the word biotechnology was not even invented, a sewage treatment plant did not work without bacteria.

Methods of gray biotechnology

In order to carry out its tasks in the environmental sector, gray biotechnology often requires microorganisms that have a very special property (such as the ability to break down a substance that is toxic to most living things). Whenever possible, organisms that naturally already have this property are used. For example, if you want to biologically clean a floor contaminated with pentachlorophenol , you look for organisms in places where pentachlorophenol has been present for a long time, which through natural adaptation and selection have developed the ability to endure or even break it down. The main advantage of this method compared to the genetic adaptation of microorganisms in the laboratory is that in many countries - including Germany - the use of so-called GMOs is subject to strict requirements and is associated with considerable additional costs. If, however, a genetic modification has to be carried out, this is done analogously to white, red, green or blue biotechnology:
mutants of the microorganisms that show differences in the amino acid sequence are generated using chemical and enzymatic methods. In the subsequent screening process, improved protein variants are sought. If an enzyme variant has been found in a species that has useful properties, the associated gene is the starting point for the next guided evolutionary round. This process is repeated in iterative cycles until the desired improvements for environmental tasks are achieved.

Applications of gray biotechnology

Remediation of contaminated sites ( soil remediation , sewage disposal, treatment of waste) is a focus of gray biotechnology

The use of organisms to remove impurities and pollutants is called bioremediation .

Examples:

Breaking down spilled oil
Clean up dumps with radioactive waste.
Elimination of solvents, plastics and heavy metals as well as toxins such as DDT , dioxins or TNT

Due to the industrial use of mineral resources, pollutants also accumulate to a considerable extent in the biosphere .

New bioadsorbers (special microorganisms) are therefore used to eliminate heavy metals from industrial wastewater, ore mine wastewater, landfill leachate and sewage from nuclear power plants

In order to even track down environmental sins, one uses biological and biotechnical processes. Microorganisms as well as biosensors and DNA probes make themselves useful as “detectives” and enable continuous monitoring. Because certain microorganisms are sensitive to pollutants, the degree of contamination can be determined, for example.
In Germany alone, more than seven million tons of biowaste are handled in biological waste treatment plants every year.
Far biotechnological processes in the environment are mainly method which engage (at the end of a process chain wastewater treatment , biofilter , biowashers etc.). Biotechnology in environmental protection does not only mean the disposal of pollution caused during production, i.e. the degradation of pollutants, but modern environmental protection begins with the avoidance of pollutants before or during industrial manufacturing processes: d. H. it is about production-integrated environmental protection, for example with white biotechnology . Genetically modified enzymes in the production of textiles, foodstuffs, detergents and pharmaceuticals save energy and raw materials and help to avoid undesired by-products during production.

This is where gray and white biotechnology overlap ; H. the industrial manufacture of products using biotechnological processes.

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Walter Reineke, Michael Schlömann: Umweltmikrobiologie . Springer-Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-642-41764-1 , p. 439.

[Reineke_Schloemann-1] A ^b Walter Reineke, Michael Schlömann: Umweltmikrobiologie . Springer-Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-642-41764-1 , p. 439.