The aim of the work was to develop effective environmental biotechnologies enabling to stop pollution of environment with a wide range of toxicants and transform them into commercially valuable products. Using the method of thermodynamic prediction an algorithm to create new universal environmental biotechnologies was developed. Distinctive features of biotechnologies include: 1). fast and efficient disposal of a wide range of environmentally hazardous waste (decaying food and agricultural waste, synthetic organic compounds, and metal-containing waste water, etc.); 2). increase the efficiency of biotechnologies due to application of selected soil anaerobic microorganisms; 3). obtaining of a wide range of valuable products: gaseous fuels (hydrogen, methane), solid fuel (unfermented lignin and cellulose residues), concentrate of nonferrous metals (copper, chromium, etc.) and clean water; 4). ability to scale and replicate typical technologies of designated purpose. Obtained engineering and technological parameters of universal biotechnologies indicate the prospects of their large-scale industrial implementation.
The paper presents the final results of a five-year research (2011-2015) conducted at the Extremophilic Microorganism Biology Department. Extremotolerant microorganisms were isolated from phytocenoses and soils of West Antarctic; subtropical soils (Israel), karst caves and soils of temperate regions (Ukraine, Bulgaria), silt of hypersaline lakes of Crimea (Ukraine) and the Dead Sea (Israel), highland areas of Andes (Ecuador). 10% of them were resistant to toxic metals, 1-сhloro-4-nitrobenzene, UV radiation, high salinity, as well as to low and high temperatures. A method of thermodynamic prognosis of microbial interaction with various toxic compounds was developed, providing a theoretical background for designing new environmental biotechnologies. It enabled to determine the conditions for microbial metabolism regulation that provide for complete degradation of synthetic organic compounds and food wastes as well as for production of energy carriers (H 2 , CH 4 , ethanol, solid fuel). The specified approach resulted an isolation of a number of strains that were resistant to the most toxic metals (Hg 2+ , Cu 2+ , Ni 2+ , Fe 3+ , Fe 2+ , CrO 4 2-) and performed a variety of interactions with metal compounds including mobilization and immobilization, dissolving and sedimentation. Biodiversity of microorganisms in West Antarctica was studied by means of standard microbiological methods as along with phylogenetic and metagenomic analysis. Pyrosequencing of 16S rDNA amplicons of microbial communities in the studied samples revealed representatives of 20 bacterial phyla. Microbiological methods identified cultivable representatives of four phyla (Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes), which included 25 species. The paper presents the results of taxonomic and/or biotechnology studies of specialized groups of extremophiles: ironreducing bacteria, hydrogen-producing bacteria and obligate methane-oxidizing bacteria.
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