About
LVM Biocells
This LIFE+ project focuses on a cost-efficient, energy efficient and environmentally advantageous innovative remediation technology. It can be the solution for:
- in situ remediation systems where an increase in groundwater flow is necessary for the success of the technique,
- sites where multiple contaminations are present (e.g. heavy metals can also be precipitated by microbial population) and
- large CAH contaminations that are difficult and very expensive to remediate with traditional remediation techniques.
Unique bacterial strain
Anaerobic dechlorination by soil organisms is a promising remediation approach for CAH contamination, if conditions are favourable or can be made favourable. Ghent University has carried out research which resulted in the isolation of ‘Desulfitobacterium dichloroelimansstrain DCA-1′. This bacterial strain is unique and can biodegrade 12DCA to ethene without the formation of toxic intermediate products. Based on this bacterium, Avecom developed a multispecies dechlorinating culture that degrades 12DCA as well as chlorinated ethenes into ethene. This gives innovative perspectives for the combined removal of the recalcitrant 12DCA and chlorinated ethenes, both present in the groundwater of LVM. One of the goals of this project is to upgrade an innovative production method for the multispecies dechlorinating culture of Avecom. More specifically, an onsite bioreactor is aimed in which the culture can be grown on the contaminated groundwater.
Development of hydrogeobiocells
In order to be successful, in situ remediation techniques always require sufficient groundwater velocities. If groundwater flow velocities are too slow, one needs to increase them in order to carry out in situ bioremediation. Ghent University of has developed a technique of hydrogeobiocells (HGBcells), which increases the groundwater flow velocity by a specific pumping and injection scheme and where no treatment of the contaminated groundwater is necessary.
