Las fuentes más comunes de contaminación ambiental son las refinerías de petróleo, plantas de generación de energía eléctrica, los procesos metalúrgicos y las plantas de tratamiento de efluentes cuyos desechos ingresan indirectamente a las aguas de los ríos, lagunas, océanos y suelos. Frente a este problema la biotecnología está tratando de presentar alternativas de bajo costo y fáciles de implementar, como la biodegradación de hidrocarburos, la remoción de metales pesados empleando desechos agroindustriales, organismos vivos de orígen animal, vegetal, microbiano, fúngico o algal, etc. Con la finalidad de seleccionar una cepa que pueda servir como biosorbente microbiano, se reactivaron 122 cepas aisladas en ambiente minero, a las que se les probó la resistencia a metales pesados, velocidad de crecimiento y capacidad de producción de biomasa. En base a estos parámetros...

The Ticapampa mining effluent was treated with Serratia marcescens M8a-2T dry biomass to remove polutants such as cadmium and lead. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Box–Behnken design matrix have been applied to optimizate the process. The influence of pH (2, 3 and 4), biomass concentration (1, 2 and 3 mg/mL) and contact time (15, 30 and 45 minutes) were evaluated. The maximum removal percentage for cadmium was 97.11% at pH 4, 2 mg/mL of biomass during 45 minutes; and for lead was 98.63% at pH 4, 1 mg/mL of biomass during 30 minutes. The high levels of significance (p <0.05) of the regression and ANOVA models indicated pH as the most influencer factor. The Response Surface Methodology was a very important tool to optimize bioremediation process.

Bacterial cellulose has a variety of applications both in the paper, textile, food, cosmetic and medicine industries; This is due to its excellent physicochemical properties such as: high degree of purity, high crystallinity, excellent biodegradability, high Young's modulus, high water retention capacity and excellent biological affinity. The objective of this work was to evaluate cellulose production by bacteria isolated from sugarcane. The collected samples were allowed to ferment until the appearance of a thick film on the surface, from which axenic cultures were obtained on the HS medium. Isolated cultures were transferred to HS brothand incubated under static conditions until a film formed on the culture surface. Bacterial identification was carried out based on a physiological characterization of the isolated strains and their capacity to produce cellulose. FT-IR analysis of the fi...