The oil and gas industry generates large amounts of oil-derived effluents such as Heavy Crude Oil (HCO) in water (W) emulsions, which pose a significant remediation and recovery challenge due to their high stability and the presence of environmentally concerning compounds. Nanomaterials emerge as a suitable alternative for the recovery of such effluents, as they can separate them under mild conditions. Additionally, different biomolecules with bioremediation and interfacial capabilities have been explored to functionalize such nanomaterials to improve their performance even further. Here, we put forward the notion of combining these technologies for the simultaneous separation and treatment of O/W effluent emulsions by a novel co-immobilization approach where both OmpA (a biosurfactant) and Laccase (a remediation enzyme) were effectively immobilized on polyether amine (PEA)-modified magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs). The obtained bionanocompounds (i.e., MNP-PEA-OmpA, MNP-PEA-Laccase, and MNP-PEA-OmpA-Laccase) were successfully characterized via DLS, XRD, TEM, TGA, and FTIR. The demulsification of O/W emulsions was achieved by MNP-PEA-OmpA and MNP-PEA-OmpA-Laccase at 5000 ppm. This effect was further improved by applying an external magnetic field to approach HCO removal efficiencies of 81% and 88%, respectively. The degradation efficiencies with these two bionanocompounds reached levels of between 5% and 50% for the present compounds. Taken together, our results indicate that the developed nanoplatform holds significant promise for the efficient treatment of emulsified effluents from the oil and gas industry.

Current treatments against bacterial infections have severe limitations, mainly due to the emergence of resistance to conventional antibiotics. In the specific case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains, they have shown a number of resistance mechanisms to counter most antibiotics. Human secretory RNases from the RNase A superfamily are proteins involved in a wide variety of biological functions, including antimicrobial activity. The objective of this work was to explore the intracellular antimicrobial action of an RNase 3/1 hybrid protein that combines RNase 1 high catalytic and RNase 3 bactericidal activities. To achieve this, we immobilized the RNase 3/1 hybrid on Polyetheramine (PEA)-modified magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs). The obtained nanobioconjugates were tested in macrophage-derived THP-1 cells infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. The obtained results show high antimicrobial activity of the functionalized hybrid protein (MNP-RNase 3/1) against the intracellular growth of P. aeruginosa of the functionalized hybrid protein. Moreover, the immobilization of RNase 3/1 enhances its antimicrobial and cell-penetrating activities without generating any significant cell damage. Considering the observed antibacterial activity, the immobilization of the RNase A superfamily and derived proteins represents an innovative approach for the development of new strategies using nanoparticles to deliver antimicrobials that counteract P. aeruginosa intracellular infection.