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Emerging Issues in Biotech > L2 Water > Flashcards

L2 Water Flashcards

1
Q

How many people in the world lack access to clean water?

A

785mn

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2
Q

What disease is the most common?

A

Cholera

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3
Q

What are 2 main water challenges?

A

Maintaining Ecosystem sustainability
Developing safe water systems

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4
Q

What is water stress?

A

Ratio between supply & demand due to water demand, mismanagement & climate change

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5
Q

What are water quality & societal wellbeing threatened by?

A

Emerging pollutants
Pathogens

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6
Q

What is a possible solution to water challenges?

A

Recycling of used water

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7
Q

What can waste water contain?

A

Trace chemicals of from chemical & pharma products

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8
Q

What do some trace chemicals disrupt>

A

Operation of hormonal system that governs growth, reproduction & behaviour

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9
Q

What technology is used to detect pollutants?

A

Sensor

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10
Q

What is WatchFrog?

A

French company that developed an in vivo test for identifying presence of endocrine disruptors in water

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11
Q

What does watchfrog use?

A

Transgenic tadpole that fluoresces when it encounters chemical contaminants in water that disrupt thyroid function

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12
Q

What is the degree of fluorescence measured by?

A

calibrated against a base level of fluorescence defined in a reference sample

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13
Q

Define bioeconomy.

A

Use of renewable resources from land and seas & use of waste to make value added products such as food, feed, bio-based products & bioenergy

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14
Q

What is a potential effect of a bio-based economy?

A

Intensification of agriculture, forestry & aquaculture

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15
Q

What are 3 examples of strong interactions between hydrology, agronomy, forestry science & plant breeding?

A

Nutrients from fertilizers
pathogenic m/o excreted by livestock
pesticides & metabolites

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16
Q

What 2 things does waste water treatment produce?

A

Clean water & sludge

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17
Q

What is sludge?

A

A biosolid substance that can be put into an anerobic digester to produce methane & organic fertliser

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18
Q

What is a key driver for competitiveness in water industry?

A

Water scarcity & need to protect natural resources

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19
Q

What are 3 constraints in water reuse?

A

Finance
human health
environmental safety standards & regulations

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20
Q

What can waste processing recover?

A

Energy & raw materials

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21
Q

What are the sustainable development goals?

A

Broad reaching targets from UN that aim to end poverty, protect the planet & ensure prosperity for all

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22
Q

What does goal 6 of the SDG relate to?

A

Clean water & sanitation for all

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23
Q

What is a recent directive in new EU legislation?

A

Quaternary treatment

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24
Q

What is quaternary treatment?

A

Additional & advanced treatment of urban wastewater biotech-based eliminate the broadest spectrum of micropollutants
Physical or chemical

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25
Q

Describe primary - tertiary treatment?

A

Primary treatment - separates solid from liquids
Secondary - takes liquid waste & reduces pollutant level
Tertiary - further removal of nutrients eg. Nitrogen

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26
Q

What is a con of Quaternary treatment?

A

chemical oxidation produces bio-products - harmful or even more harmful than prior product

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27
Q

What have microbes been shown to do?

A

breakdown complex molecules (eg. Carbon compounds) into innocous things like CO2

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28
Q

What does water stress cause?

A

Deterioration of freshwater resources in terms of quantitiy & quality

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29
Q

What is the dominant process for WW treatment?

A

Activated sludge

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30
Q

What process is activated sludge?

A

Attached growth/biofilm/fixed film process

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31
Q

What is water purification dominated by?

A

Physical and/or chemical treatment processes with minimal use of biological treatment

32
Q

What are m/o the primary mediators of?

A

Geochemical change

33
Q

What are m/o the primary mediators of?

A

Geochemical change

34
Q

What characteristics of m/o make them key recycling agents for the biosphere?

A

Small size
ubiquitous distribution
high specific SA
high rate of metabolic activity

35
Q

What is effective biotreatment based on?

A

The harnessing & acceleration of microbial mediated transformation process

36
Q

What are for drivers for WW innovation?

A

Lower emission limits
Compliance with new directives on nutrient removal
Economics/energy costs
Sludge disposal
Need for better process reliability

37
Q

What are 3 objectives of WW treatment?

A

Remove max. amount of pollutant
At min. hydraulic residence time
With minimal production of biomass

38
Q

What can attached-growth or biofilm based systems achieve?

A

High cell densities through natural immobilization

39
Q

When was it observed that bacteria can adhere & grow on surfaces?

40
Q

Why are biofilms often seen as a problem?

A

Form of biofouling

41
Q

What can replicating adherent bacteria secrete?

A

Insoluble gelatinous exopolymers (EPS) forming a 3D cell:polymer matrix

42
Q

What 3 processes does biofilm formation comprise of?

A

Physical, chemical & biological - change through development & depend on environmental conditions

43
Q

What % do m/o account for in biofilm dry mass?

44
Q

What is the self produced matrix responsible for?

A

Cohesion & adhesion of cells
Development of microenvironment - allows for cell-cell interaction & communication
Reservoir of metabolic substances, nutrients & energy

45
Q

What is the EPS mainly composed of?

A

Polysaccharides
Also contain Proteins, lipids, EC DNA & other biopolymers

46
Q

What are 5 common features of microbial biofilms?

A

Adherence
EPS matrix
Architecture
Viscoelasticity
Heterogeneity

47
Q

What mechanisms do biofilms use for adherence?

A

Specific - bacterial adhesin-host receptor interactions
Non-specific - hydrophobic or electrostatic forces

48
Q

What does the EPS provide?

A

Mechanical stability
Compartmentalized chemical & physical microenvironments (protection)

49
Q

What is the architecture of biofilms?

A

Flat patches, mounds, ‘mushrooms’, towers, ripples & streamers

50
Q

What does viscoelasticity allow biofilms to do?

A

Enables biofilm to absorb & dissipate energy

51
Q

What does natural immobilization allow for?

A

Excellent biomass retention & accumulation without need for separate solid-separation devices

52
Q

What are 3 advantages two natural immobilization?

A

High volumetric productivity
Ability to completely uncouple SRT from HRT
Less susceptible to irreversible damage

53
Q

What are 3 factors of biofilms in WWT?

A

Spatial complexity
Temporal complexity
Regulation

54
Q

What can carriers do with biofilm tech?

A

Carries (sometimes called filter media) can retrofit this tech to an activated sludge process

55
Q

What is the ‘Trickling Filter’ method?

A

Bed of crushed rock or synthetic media supports biofilm
Liquid waste sprayed over the bed

56
Q

What is the mature trickling filter biofilm a complex community of?

A

Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematotes & rotifiers

57
Q

What does the rotating biological contactor consist of?

A

Series of closely spaced circular disks that are submerged in WW or rotated through it

58
Q

What do BAFs contain?

A

Granular medium that provides large SA for biofilm development

59
Q

What are 3 characteristics of BAFs?

A

Completely submerged in WW
Oxygen supplied by diffusers at base
Regular backwashing

60
Q

What 3 things can EPS be transformed into?

A

Starting material as a wood adhesive
Starting material for bio flocculant
Corrosion inhibitor

61
Q

What are 3 ways to control biofilm amount?

A

Enzymes - proteases, cellulases, polysaccharide depolymerases
Biosurfactants - short chain FAs
Quorum quenching

62
Q

What is Quorum sensing?

A

Cell-to-cell orchestrated communal behavior in response to microbial threshold density mediated through QS signals

63
Q

What 3 things is QS involved in?

A

Collective gene expression for adhesion
EPS production
Biofilm formation

64
Q

What are 3 QS signals?

A

Acyl-homoserine lactone
c-di-GMP
Diffusible signal factor

65
Q

What is Quorum Quenching?

A

M/o produce functional enzymes/inhibitors to degrade/inhibit QS signals

66
Q

What is QQ an emerging technology for?

A

Controlling biofilm average thickness (WWT) & manage biofouling in water treatment processes

67
Q

What are 3 future avenues for water & biotech?

A

Water Energy Nexus
Synthetic bio
New processes like Anammox

68
Q

How much water is taken for energy sector?

A

583 billion m^3
15% of global water withdrawls

69
Q

What are 3 growing challenges for the energy water interface?

A

Water scarcity
Increased costs & adaptive measures
Pollution of water supplies & water bodies

70
Q

What can advances in SynBio improve?

A

Efficiency of microbes for eliminating pollutants such as hydrocarbons & plastics or extracting valuable resources from environment

71
Q

What are challenges with SynBio?

A

Scale
Addressing ethical, regulatory & public acceptance
Understanding microbial interactions within engineered microbial communities

72
Q

What is Anammox?

A

organism isolated from a mine in The Netherlands - doesn’t require o2 & carbon but is a slow growing organism

73
Q

What is Anammox currently?

A

Side stream (digester supernatant)

74
Q

What is medium term?

A

Mainstream - combo of nitridation - annamox & AD

75
Q

What are 3 challenges with Anammox?

A

Acceptable process rates & stability at low temps
Suppress heterotrophic denitrifies & NOB under elevated C/N ratios
Ensure sufficient annamox biomass retention to offset slow growth rate

Emerging Issues in Biotech (9 decks)

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