By: Melissa Garcia
Column experiments of polluted salty soil exposed to bioremediation and microorganisms; Experiment 1 using bacteria only, experiment 2 with layers of foamed waste glass, and experiment 3 with integrated foamed waste glass. Figure taken from Moqsud et al. 2021
A massive-scale tsunami caused by The Great East Japan Earthquake, resulted in significant damage agriculturally throughout northern Japan. High levels of salinity in soils is a major problem, as it prevents production of major crops such as rice, wheat, corn, and vegetables. With hopes to control salt concentration, researchers applied bioremediation, a process used to treat contamination, with recycled glass and bacterial mixtures to soil samples. Recycled waste glass, known as foamed waste glass (FWG) is very porous, meaning it has sufficient pore space used to habitat microbes in clay soils. Experiment 1 monitored bioremediation with bacteria only; experiment 2 and 3 additionally incorporated FWG with microbes into the soil columns. The results found an overall decrease of salinity, due to bacterial microorganisms being present throughout all three experiments. In addition, bioremediation can successfully use foamed waste glass to inhibit bacteria. This means tsunami affected soil can effectively utilize recycled waste glass to reduce the salinity in soil. With both bacteria and recycled glass, geo-environmental conditions of polluted soil can improve by at least 70%.
Reference
Moqsud, M.A. Bioremediation of polluted soil due to tsunami by using recycled waste glass. Sci Rep 11, 14272 (2021). https://doi-org.tamiu.idm.oclc.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93806-4
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