Bioremediation of radioactive waste or bioremediation of radionuclides is an application of bioremediation based on the use of biological agents bacteria, plants and fungi (natural or genetically modified) to catalyze chemical reactions that allow the decontamination of sites affected by radionuclides. These radioactive particles are by-products generated as a result of activities related to nuclear energy and constitute a pollution and a radiotoxicity problem (with serious health and ecological consequences) due to its unstable nature of ionizing radiation emissions.
The techniques of bioremediation of environmental areas as soil, water and sediments contaminated by radionuclides are diverse and currently being set up as an ecological and economic alternative to traditional procedures. Physico-chemical conventional strategies are based on the extraction of waste by excavating and drilling, with a subsequent long-range transport for their final confinement. These works and transport have often unacceptable estimated costs of operation that could exceed a trillion dollars in the US and 50 million pounds in the UK.
The species involved in these processes have the ability to influence the properties of radionuclides such as solubility, bioavailability and mobility to accelerate its stabilization. Its action is largely influenced by electron donors and acceptors, nutrient medium, complexation of radioactive particles with the material and environmental factors. These are measures that can be performed on the source of contamination (in situ) or in controlled and limited facilities in order to follow the biological process more accurately and combine it with other systems (ex situ).
Areas contaminated by radioactivity
Typology of radionuclides and polluting waste
The presence of radioactive waste in the environment may cause long-term effects due to the activity and half-life of the radionuclides, leading their impact to grow with time. These particles exist in various oxidation states and are found as oxides, coprecipitates, or as organic or inorganic complexes, according to their origin and ways of liberation. Most commonly they are found in oxidized form, which makes them more soluble in water and thus more mobile. Unlike organic contaminants, however, they cannot be destroyed and must be converted into a stable form or extracted from the environment.
The sources of radioactivity are not exclusive of human activity. Natural radioactivity does not come from human sources: it covers up to three fourths of the total radioactivity in the world and has its origins in the interaction of terrestrial elements with high energy cosmic rays (cosmogenic radionuclides) or in the existing materials on Earth since its formation (primordial radionuclides). In this regard, there are differences in the levels of radioactivity throughout the Earth's crust. India and mountains like the Alps are among the areas with the highest level of natural radioactivity due to their composition of rocks and sand.
The most frequent radionuclides in soils are naturally radium-226 (226Ra), radon-222 (222Rn), thorium-232 (232Th), uranium-238 (238U) and potassium-40 (40K). Potassium-40 (up to 88% of total activity), carbon-14 (14C), radium-226, uranium-238 and rubidium-87 (87Rb) are found in ocean waters. Moreover, in groundwater abound radius radioisotopes such as radium-226 and radium-228 (228Ra). They are also habitual in building materials radionuclides of uranium, thorium and potassium (the latter common to wood).
At the same time, anthropogenic radionuclides (caused by humans) are due to thermonuclear reactions resulting from explosions and nuclear weapons tests, discharges from nuclear facilities, accidents deriving from the reprocessing of commercial fuel, waste storage from these processes and to a lesser extent, nuclear medicine. Some polluted sites by these radionuclides are the US DOE facilities (like Hanford Site), the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones and the affected area of Chelyabinsk Oblast due to the Kyshtym disaster.
In ocean waters, the presence of tritium (3H), cesium-137 (137Cs), strontium-90 (90Sr), plutonium-239 (239Pu) and plutonium-240 (240Pu) has significantly increased due to anthropogenic causes. In soils, technetium-99 (99Tc), carbon-14, strontium-90, cobalt-60 (60Co), iodine-129 (129I), iodine-131 (131I), americium-241 (241Am), neptunium-237 (237Np) and various forms of radioactive plutonium and uranium are the most common radionuclides.
Frequency of occurrence of selected radionuclides at US DOE facilities Ground water Soils/Sediments Source: United States Department of Energy, US Government (1992)
The classification of radioactive waste established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) distinguishes six levels according to equivalent dose, specific activity, heat released and half-life of the radionuclides:
Exempt waste (EW): Waste that meets the criteria for exclusion from regulatory control for radiation protection purposes. Very short lived waste (VSLW): Waste with very short half-lives (often used for research and medical purposes) that can be stored over a limited period of up to a few years and subsequently cleared from regulatory control. Very low level waste (VLLW): Waste like soil and rubble (with low levels of activity concentration) that may also contain other hazardous waste. Low level waste (LLW): Waste that is above clearance levels and requires robust isolation and containment for periods of up to a few hundred years and is suitable for disposal in engineered near surface facilities. LLW include short lived radionuclides at higher levels of activity concentration and also long lived radionuclides, but only at relatively low levels of activity concentration. Intermediate level waste (ILW): Waste with long lived radionuclides that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation at greater depths. High level waste (HLW): Waste with large amounts of long lived radionuclides that need to be stored in deep, stable geological formations usually several hundred metres or more below the surface.
Ecological and human health consequences Radioactive contamination is a potential danger for living organisms and results in external hazards, concerning radiation sources outside the body, and internal dangers, as a result of the incorporation of radionuclides inside the body (often by inhalation of particles or ingestion of contaminated food).
In humans, single doses from 0.25 Sv produce first anomalies in the amount of leukocytes. This effect is accentuated if the absorbed dose is between 0.5 and 2 Sv, in whose first damage, nausea and hair loss are suffered. The strip ranging between 2 and 5 Sv is considered the most serious and include bleeding, ulcers and risk of death; values exceeding 5 Sv involve immediate death. If radiation, likewise, is received in small doses over long periods of time, the consequences can be equally severe. It is difficult to quantify the health effects for doses below 10 mSv, but it has been shown that there is a direct relationship between prolonged exposure and cancer risk (although there is not a very clear dose-response relationship to establish clear limits of exposure).
The information available on the effect of natural background radiation with respect anthropogenic pollution on wildlife is scarce and refers to very few species. It is very difficult to estimate from the available data the total doses that can accumulate during specific stages of the life cycle (embryonic development or reproductive age), in changes in behavior or depending on environmental factors such as seasonality. The phenomena of radioactive bioaccumulation, bioconcentration and biomagnification, however, are especially known to sea level. They are caused by the recruitment and retention of radioisotopes by bivalves, crustaceans, corals and phytoplankton, which then amounted to the rest of the food chain at low concentration factors.
Radiobiological literature and IAEA establish a safe limit of absorbed dose of 0.001 Gy/d for terrestrial animals and 0.01 Gy/d for plants and marine biota, although this limit should be reconsidered for long-lived species with low reproductive capacity.
Radiation tests in model organisms that determine the effects of high radiation on animals and plants are:
Chromosomal aberrations. DNA damage. Cancer, particularly leukemia. Leukopenia. Growth reduction. Reproductive deficiencies: sterility, reduction in fecundity, and occurrence of developmental abnormalities or reduction in viability of offspring Reduced seed germination. Burned tissues exposed to radiation. Mortality, including both acute lethality and long-term reduction in life span.
The effects of radioactivity on bacteria are given, as in eukaryotes, by ionization of water and production of reactive oxygen species. These compounds mutate DNA strands and produce genetic damage, inducing newly lysis and subsequent cell death.
Its action on viruses, on the other hand, results in damaged nucleic acids and viral inactivation. They have a sensory threshold ranging between 1000 and 10,000 Gy (range occupying most biological organisms) which decreases with increasing genome size.
Bacterial bioremediation The biochemical transformation of radionuclides into stable isotopes by bacterial species significantly differs from the metabolism of organic compounds coming from carbon sources. They are highly energetic radioactive forms which can be converted indirectly by the process of microbial energy transfer.
Radioisotopes can be transformed directly through changes in valence state by acting as acceptors or by acting as cofactors to enzymes. They can also be transformed indirectly by reducing and oxidizing agents produced by microorganisms that cause changes in pH or redox potential. Other processes include precipitation and complexation of surfactants, or chelating agents that bind to radioactive elements. Human intervention, on the other hand, can improve these processes through genetic engineering and omics, or by injection of microorganisms or nutrients into the treatment area.
Bioreduction
According to the radioactive element and the specific site conditions, bacteria can enzymatically immobilize radionuclides directly or indirectly. Their redox potential is exploited by some microbial species to carry out reductions that alter the solubility and hence, mobility, bioavailability and radiotoxicity. This waste treatment technique called bioreduction or enzymatic biotransformation is very attractive because it can be done in mild conditions for the environment, does not produce hazardous secondary waste and has potential as a solution for waste of various kinds.
Direct enzymatic reduction is the change of radionuclides of a higher oxidation state to a lower one made by facultative and obligate anaerobes. The radioisotope interact with binding sites of metabolically active cells and is used as terminal electron acceptor in the electron transport chain where compounds such as ethyl lactate act as electron donors under anaerobic respiration.
The periplasm plays a very important role in these bioreductions. In the reduction of uranium (VI) to insoluble uranium (IV), made by Shewanella putrefaciens, Desulfovibrio vulgaris, Desulfovibrio desulfuricans and Geobacter sulfurreducens, the activity of periplasmic cytochromes is required. The reduction of technetium (VII) to technetium (IV) made by S. putrefaciens, G. sulfurreducens, D. desulfuricans, Geobacter metallireducens and Escherichia coli, on the other hand, requires the presence of the complex formate hydrogenlyase, also placed in this cell compartment.
Other radioactive actinides such as thorium, plutonium, neptunium and americium are enzymatically reduced by Rhodoferax ferrireducens, S. putrefaciens and several species of Geobacter, and directly form an insoluble mineral phase.