For the science people out there...​

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The founders of Bionex have been aware of some unique characteristics of microbes for several years and has adapted these findings into their active biodegradation and cleaning products.  The resulting products are a unique mixture of bacterial spores, enzymes, and other proprietary ingredients.  These products are effective in removing hydrocarbons and chlorinated compounds in water and soils over a wide range of environments.  These mixed cultures almost simultaneously degrade the wide variety of the potential 300,000 natural hydrocarbon molecules that may have up to 60 carbon atoms.   

 

Bionex products essentially contain multitude of natural communities of aerobic and microaerophilic microorganisms that have been selected from worldwide soil and water sources.  These highly concentrated proprietary mixtures are composed of single cells ranging in size from 1 to 10 microns.  These microbes have been selected for their affinity to effectively digest a wide range of compounds and hydrocarbons by converting them into non-toxic components. 

 

Bionex microbes employ the concept of aerobic cometabolism by multiple strains of microorganisms, primarily of the bacilli and Pseudomonas strains selected from the natural environment for their collective ability to degrade hydrocarbon molecules.  They are not genetically altered in any way. 

 

These microorganisms are active in normal soil and water biogeochemical cycling of both inorganic and organic compounds, specifically hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbon back to their primary elements and carbon dioxide and water, through an intermediary of organic acids and pyruvic acid cycle. 

 

The microorganisms in our product utilize, by cometabolism, hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons in known metabolic pathways where chlorine is released as ions and the hydrocarbons oxidized to respective fatty acids.  In other words, hydrocarbons are degraded into the same carbon number fatty acids, which can be used as food by water and soil organisms, and then into environmentally benign components like carbon, carbon dioxide, base elements and water.  Once the hydrocarbon contamination is degraded the microbes die and can be used as a food source by aquatic and earth organisms. 

 

The conditions required for biological activity of Bionex’s microbes are normal environmental parameters for microorganism growth.  For biodegradation to occur in the subsurface environment, the following basic requirements need to be met:   

 

Energy source and a carbon source - organic carbon is utilized both as an energy source by releasing electrons during transformation and it is also used by the cell for maintenance and growth. 

 

Electron acceptor - the electrons released by the carbon transformation must be taken up by some other chemical. 

 

Nutrients - for bacterial growth to occur certain nutrients are needed (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and many trace elements) 

 

Appropriate environmental conditions - microbial activity is dependent upon many environmental conditions such as temperature, pH, salinity, pressure, concentration of pollutants, and presence of inhibitors.  Such as:  space, salinity (<35%), carbon, oxygen (>3), pH (5-10), temperature (29F-120F), and water (>10%).  Any of above can be limiting as well as any oxidizing agent that might be present in the environment.  Our microorganisms were selected by their ability to stay with hydrocarbons.  As the hydrocarbons move in soil and water, the product will move as well.  It will move on water surfaces and be diffused in water.  Aquifer movement will spread the microorganisms.  However, when nutrients and substrate (e.g. hydrocarbons) are depleted the product will reduce in number following normal soil population sequences where byproducts of substrates elicit successions of specific microorganisms.  As the product consists of natural soil and water organisms, they will return to background numbers. 

 

Some movement may be increased by the microbial hydrocarbon degradation to fatty acids that act as a weak dispersant.  Normally this would be towards the contaminant.  This movement is controlled by the impacted substrate so widespread movement to other areas would not be anticipated.  In practice, no environmental impact has been identified over 20 years of use in a wide variety of environments throughout several countries.   

 

The environments of origin and application are interchangeable.  Bioremediation deals with soils and water.  Samples have been collected from a wide range of soil types ranging from clays to saturated sands.  These collection sites were in general similar to project bioremediation sites.  Microorganisms are ubiquitous* being transported in the air, water and by living organisms.  Therefore, the Bionex formula of natural organisms collected from the wide variety of sources is potentially similar to biodegradation sites where they will be introduced. 

Potential pathogens to man or plants are excluded by cultivating the microbes in a proprietary process, and using hydrocarbon as the sole carbon source.  For enhanced activity related to microbial-substrate contact, only hydrophobic cells are selected.  The cultures are routinely analyzed by an independent laboratory for potentially dangerous microorganisms and are certified to be human, plant and animal pathogen free. 

These are not genetically engineered microbes or freeze dried microbes. 

 

Super Microbe Product information: 

 

Very concentrated – 100 billion cells per gram 

Aerobic/Facultative 

Activated by water – fresh or salt 

Temperature range 35F – 120F 

pH tolerance 5.5-10.0 

Non-toxic/Non-corrosive 

 

 

 

*Our claim that hydrocarbon degrading microorganisms are ubiquitous in the subsurface environment is not made without substantiation, there are many published references that support this claim.