Technology for the protection of soil and water resources from pesticide contamination

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Dra M Cristina Diez-Jerez
 

University of La Frontera. Chile

: J Biodivers Manage Forestry

Abstract

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Statement of the Problem: Pesticides are toxic chemicals that besides to target pests can adversely affect the environment. The point-source contamination with pesticides could be during its manipulation, mainly while filling the tank or cleaning spraying equipment or by wastewaters generated by industrial activities. Agro industrial wastewater with high pesticide loads (50-1000 mg L-1) has been reported. As a consequence, pesticide residues and their transformation products are frequently found in soils, groundwater and surface waters. Pesticides in wastewater are characterized by high loads, high toxicity, low water solubility and serious problems of disposal and treatment. However, pesticides can be degraded efficiently in bio purification system (BPS) including the metabolites formed during the biodegradation which usually are more toxic and dangerous than the original compounds. In this sense, it is necessary to have an optimized treatment that ensures complete degradation of both pesticides and metabolites. In this sense, we have isolated from the same BPS pesticides degrading bacteria and fungi, which have demonstrated high efficiency removing these contaminants and their metabolites both in batch and continuous process. The vegetal cover of the BPS has also demonstrated a positive effect on pesticides degradation diminishing the half-life of the contaminants significantly even in repeated applications. Besides, recently we have isolated from the BPS bio surfactants-producing bacteria that are an important role in the pesticides solubilisation for a better biodegradation. Besides this bio surfactants have great application in biotechnology process. In this sense, complete knowledge of the BPS and its interactions allows us to prevent contamination of both soil and water in a process in which contaminants are retained and degraded within the treatment system.

Biography

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Dra. Diez is Chemist with specialization in Environmental Biotechnology with research focused on waste valorization for agriculture and energetic purposes. She studies different residues like bio char, sawdust, perlite, diatomite, etc., for degraded soil improvement and for water uptake optimization by different crops. In the Academy, she has supervised postdoctoral research, 14 doctoral Thesis, and 34 undergrad theses. She has contributed with 160 (ISI/wos) papers, 41 technical papers, 14 books/chapters, 236 international meetings, 120 national meetings and 3 patents.