Effect of Urucu oil (Brazilian Amazon) on the biomass of the aquatic macrophyte Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms (Pontederiaceae)

Os rios e lagos de várzea da província petrolífera de Urucu, na Amazônia Central, são amplamente colonizados por macrófitas aquáticas, que podem ser afetadas por acidentes durante a exploração e o transporte de petróleo. Entre as macrófitas, a espécie flutuante Eichhornia crassipes (aguapé) ocorre abundantemente na região; OBJETIVO: O objetivo desse estudo foi verificar o efeito de diferentes dosagens do petróleo de Urucu (0; 0,5; 1,5 e 3,0 L.m-2) na biomassa viva e morta de E. crassipes e em algumas características físicas e químicas da água; MÉTODOS: O experimento teve oitenta e quatro dias de duração. A cada sete dias foi determinada a biomassa (viva e morta) de E. crassipes e os valores de temperatura, pH, condutividade elétrica e oxigênio dissolvido da água; RESULTADOS: A dosagem de 0,5 L.m-2 foi suficiente para causar mortalidade parcial (48%) em E. crassipes após trinta e cinco dias de exposição ao petróleo. A dosagem de 3,0 L.m-2 causou mortalidade total (100%) em E. crassipes em oitenta e quatro dias de exposição. A decomposição do petróleo e da biomassa morta de E. crassipes provocam a redução do oxigênio dissolvido e do pH, e aumento da condutividade elétrica e de fósforo total na água; CONCLUSÕES: Nós concluímos que um derramamento de petróleo pode provocar mortalidade total em uma população de uma espécie de macrófita, mas não em uma outra. Isto pode alterar a diversidade de espécies de macrófitas na região impactada. No caso de Eichhornia crassipes e Pistia stratiotes, um derramamento de petróleo de Urucu pode favorecer E. crassipes, a espécie menos sensível ao petróleo.

Rhamnolipid produced from agroindustrial wastes enhances hydrocarbon biodegradation in contaminated soil

A crude biosurfactant solution was produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa growing on agroindustrial wastes as the substrate and used to study its effect on hydrocarbon biodegradation by the indigenous soil microflora under laboratory conditions. Two concentrations were studied at first and 1 mg of biosurfactant/g of soil showed to be the most efficient for the total petroleum hydrocarbon reduction, which reached 85% at the first 20 days in soil microcosms. Respirometric and microbial analyses showed that the biosurfactant added did not have toxic effects over the microbial population. The use of a biosurfactant for bioremediation has been limited because of its high cost production. Biosurfactants produced from cost-free by-products combines waste minimization with economic potential bioremediation process.

Biosurfactants production by yeasts using soybean oil and glycerol as low cost substrate

Biosurfactants are bioactive agents that can be produced by many different microorganisms. Among those, special attention is given to yeasts, since they can produce many types of biosurfactants in large scale, using several kinds of substrates, justifying its use for industrial production of those products. For this production to be economically viable, the use of residual carbon sources is recommended. The present study isolated yeasts from soil contaminated with petroleum oil hydrocarbons and assessed their capacity for producing biosurfactants in low cost substrates. From a microbial consortium enriched, seven yeasts were isolated, all showing potential for producing biosurfactants in soybean oil. The isolate LBPF 3, characterized as Candida antarctica, obtained the highest levels of production - with a final production of 13.86 g/L. The isolate LBPF 9, using glycerol carbon source, obtained the highest reduction in surface tension in the growth medium: approximately 43% of reduction after 24 hours of incubation. The products obtained by the isolates presented surfactant activity, which reduced water surface tension to values that varied from 34 mN/m, obtained from the product of isolates LBPF 3 and 16 LBPF 7 (respectively characterized as Candida antarctica and Candida albicans) to 43 mN/m from the isolate LPPF 9, using glycerol as substrate. The assessed isolates all showed potential for the production of biosurfactants in conventional sources of carbon as well as in agroindustrial residue, especially in glycerol.

Molecular analysis of the bacterial diversity in a specialized consortium for diesel oil degradation

Diesel oil is a compound derived from petroleum, consisting primarily of hydrocarbons. Poor conditions in transportation and storage of this product can contribute significantly to accidental spills causing serious ecological problems in soil and water and affecting the diversity of the microbial environment. The cloning and sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene is one of the molecular techniques that allows estimation and comparison of the microbial diversity in different environmental samples. The aim of this work was to estimate the diversity of microorganisms from the Bacteria domain in a consortium specialized in diesel oil degradation through partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. After the extraction of DNA metagenomics, the material was amplified by PCR reaction using specific oligonucleotide primers for the 16S rRNA gene. The PCR products were cloned into a pGEM-T-Easy vector (Promega), and Escherichia coli was used as the host cell for recombinant DNAs. The partial clone sequencing was obtained using universal oligonucleotide primers from the vector. The genetic library obtained generated 431 clones. All the sequenced clones presented similarity to phylum Proteobacteria, with Gammaproteobacteria the most present group (49.8 % of the clones), followed by Alphaproteobacteira (44.8 %) and Betaproteobacteria (5.4 %). The Pseudomonas genus was the most abundant in the metagenomic library, followed by the Parvibaculum and the Sphingobium genus, respectively. After partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA, the diversity of the bacterial consortium was estimated using DOTUR software. When comparing these sequences to the database from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a strong correlation was found between the data generated by the software used and the data deposited in NCBI.

Molecular Identification and Characterization of Ileal and Cecal Fungus Communities in Broilers Given Probiotics, Specific Essential Oil Blends, and Under Mixed Eimeria Infection

Broiler digestive tract fungal communities have gained far less scrutiny than that given corresponding bacterial communities. Attention given poultry-associated fungi have focused primarily on feed-associated toxin-producers, yeast, and yeast products. The current project focused on the use of pyrosequencing and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to identify and monitor broiler digestive fungal communities. Eight different treatments were included. Four controls were an Uninfected-Unmedicated Control, an Unmedicated-Infected Control, the antibiotic bacitracin methylene disalicylate plus the ionophore monensin as Positive Control, and the ionophore monensin alone as a Negative Control. Four treatments were two probiotics (BC-30 and Calsporin) and two specific essential oil blends (Crina Poultry Plus and Crina Poultry AF). All chickens except the Unmedicated-Uninfected Control were given, at 15 days of age, a standard oral Eimeria inoculum of sporulated oocysts. Ileal and cecal digesta were collected at pre-Eimeria infection at 14 days of age and at 7 days post-Eimeria infection at 22 days of age. Extracted cecal DNA was analyzed by pyrosequencing to examine the impact of diet supplements and Eimeria infection on individual constituents in the fungal community, while DGGE was used to compare more qualitative changes in ileal and cecal communities. Pyrosequencing identified three phyla, seven classes, eight orders, 13 families, 17 genera, and 23 fungal species. Ileal and cecal DGGE patterns showed fungal communities were clustered mainly into pre- and post-infection patterns. Post-infection Unmedicated-Uninfected patterns were clustered with pre-infection groups demonstrating a strong effect of Eimeria infection on digestive fungal populations. These combined techniques offered added versatility towards unraveling the effects of enteropathogen infection and performance enhancing feed additives on broiler digestive microflora.

Towards new botanical pesticides: the toxic effect of Eremanthus goyazensis (Asteraceae) leaves essential oil against Brevipalpus phoenicis (Acari: Tenuipalpidae)

This work reports the chemical characterization of Eremanthusgoyzensis essential oil and its toxic effect over Brevipalpus phoenicis. The essential oil displayed a major composition of sesquiterpenes (61.87%) including trans-caryophillene (26.81%) and germacrene-D (13.31%). The fumigation test indicated a promising bioactivity over adult B. phoenicis individuals at 24 h (2.03 µL/L of air) and 48 h (1.08 µL/L of air) of exposition. A brief discussion of essential oils composition and their singular role on the toxic effect over B. phoenicis is provided here. Our results may contribute to a new and profitable use of a species of Brazilian flora on agribusiness.

Composition and acaricidal activity of the essential oil of Lychnophora ericoides Mart. to Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae).

The essential oil of the leaves and branches obtained by hydrodistillation of Lychnophora ericoides, collected in the Reserve of Furnas - MG, Brazil, was analyzed by CG/EM (Shimadzu QP2010). The major parts of the volatile components identified in the essential oil of leaves were monoterpenes (44.02%) and the sesquiterpene [alpha]-bisabolol (2.05%). The major acaricidal activity of the essential oil from L. ericoides was observed at 48 (14.55 [mu]L/L of air) and 72 h (8.01 [mu]L/L of air) of exposition. The oviposition of T. urticae oviposition was influenced by the essential oil, but the eclosion of eggs was not affected.

Development of mint (Mentha piperita L.) grown on biosolids: evaluation of productivity and essential oil content

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Avaliação da remoção de sulfeto de hidrogênio do gás natural em uma coluna de absorção

Natural gas, although basically composed by light hydrocarbons, also presents in its composition gaseous contaminants such as CO2 (carbon dioxide) and H2S (hydrogen sulfide). Hydrogen sulfide, which commonly occurs in oil and gas exploration and production activities, besides being among the gases that are responsible by the acid rain and greenhouse effect, can also cause serious harm to health, leading even to death, and damages to oil and natural gas pipelines. Therefore, the removal of hydrogen sulfide will significantly reduce operational costs and will result in oil with best quality to be sent to refinery, thereby resulting in economical, environmental, and social benefits. These factors highlight the need for the development and improvement of hydrogen sulfide sequestrating agents to be used in the oil industry. Nowadays there are several procedures for hydrogen sulfide removal from natural gas used by the petroleum industry. However, they produce derivatives of amines that are harmful to the distillation towers, form insoluble precipitates that cause pipe clogging and produce wastes of high environmental impact. Therefore, the obtaining of a stable system, in inorganic or organic reaction media, that is able to remove hydrogen sulfide without forming by-products that affect the quality and costs of natural gas processing, transport and distribution is of great importance. In this context, the evaluation of the kinetics of H2S removal is a valuable procedure for the treatment of natural gas and disposal of the byproducts generated by the process. This evaluation was made in an absorption column packed with Raschig ring, where natural gas with H2S passes through a stagnant solution, being the contaminant absorbed by it. The content of H2S in natural gas in column output was monitored by an H2S analyzer. The comparison between the obtained curves and the study of the involved reactions have not only allowed to determine the efficiency and mass transfer controlling step of the involved processes but also make possible to effect a more detailed kinetic study and evaluate the commercial potential of each reagent

Análise dos Processos de Flotação e Oxidação Avançada para o Tratamento de Efluente Modelo da Indústria do Petróleo

The generation of wastes in most industrial process is inevitable. In the petroleum industry, one of the greatest problems for the environment is the huge amount of produced water generated in the oil fields. This wastewater is a complex mixture and present great amounts. These effluents can be hazardous to the environmental without adequate treatment. This research is focused in the analysis of the efficiencies of the flotation and photo-oxidation processes to remove and decompose the organic compounds present in the produced water. A series of surfactants derivated from the laurilic alcohol was utilized in the flotation to promote the separation. The experiments have been performed with a synthetic wastewater, carefully prepared with xylene. The experimental data obtained using flotation presented a first order kinetic, identified by the quality of the linear data fitting. The best conditions were found at 0.029 g.L-1 for the surfactant EO 7, 0.05 g.L-1 for EO 8, 0.07 g.L-1 for EO 9, 0.045 g.L-1 for EO 10 and 0.08 g.L-1 for EO 23 with the following estimated kinetic constants: 0.1765, 0.1325, 0.1210, 0.1531 and 0.1699 min-1, respectively. For the series studied, the most suitable surfactant was the EO 7 due to the lower reagent onsumption, higher separation rate constant and higher removal efficiency of xylene in the aqueous phase (98%). Similarly to the flotation, the photo-Fenton process shows to be efficient for degradation of xylene and promoting the mineralization of the organic charge around 90% and 100% in 90 min

Non-destructive determination of photosynthetic pigments in the leaves of castor oil plants

Objetivou-se com o presente trabalho, estabelecer a relação entre os pigmentos fotossintéticos extraídos em DMSO e as leituras obtidas no clorofilômetro portátil ClorofiLOG® 1030, gerando modelos matemáticos capazes de predizer os teores de clorofila e de carotenóides em folhas de mamoneira. O trabalho foi conduzido na Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA) Algodão, situada em Campina Grande, Estado da Paraíba, em outubro de 2010. Para a análise indireta, foi utilizado um equipamento portátil, sendo realizada a leitura em discos foliares com diferentes tonalidades de verde, sendo feita, nesses mesmos discos, a determinação da clorofila pelo método clássico. Para a extração da clorofila, utilizaram-se 5 mL de dimetilsulfóxido (DMSO), a qual foi mantida em banho-maria a 70ºC, por 30 minutos, e retirou-se 3 mL da alíquota para leitura em espectrofotômetro nos comprimentos de onda de 470, 646 e 663 nm. Os dados foram submetidos à análise da variância e regressão polinomial. A leitura obtida no clorofilômetro portátil foi a variável dependente, e os pigmentos fotossintéticos determinados pelo método clássico foi a variável independente. Os resultados indicaram que o clorofilômetro portátil ClorofiLOG® 1030, associado a modelos matemáticos, permitiu estimar a concentração dos pigmentos fotossintéticos, exceto a clorofila b, com alta precisão, com economia de tempo e com reagentes normalmente utilizados nos procedimentos convencionais.

Otimização do processo de flotação de emulsão óleo/água através do planejamento fatorial completo

In recent decades, the generation of solid and liquid waste has increased substantially due to increased industrial activity that is directly linked to economic growth. For that is the most efficient process, it is inevitable generation of such wastes. In the oil industry, a major waste generated in oil exploration is produced water, which due to its complex composition and the large amount generated, has become a challenge, given the restrictions imposed by environmental laws regarding their disposal, making if necessary create alternatives for reuse or treatment in order to reduce the content of contaminants and reduce the harmful effects to the environment. This water can be present in free form or emulsified with the oil, when in the form of an emulsion of oil-water type, it is necessary to use chemicals to promote the separation and flotation is the treatment method which has proved to be more efficient, for it can remove much of the emulsified oil when compared to other methods. In this context, the object of this work was to study the individual effects and interactions of some physicochemical parameters of operations, based on previous work to a flotation cell used in the separation of synthetic emulsion oil / water in order to optimize the efficiency of the separation process through of the 24 full factorial design with center point. The response variables to evaluate the separation efficiency was the percentage of color and turbidity removal. The independent variables were: concentration of de-emulsifying, oil content in water, salinity and pH, these being fixed, minimum and maximum limits. The analysis of variance for the equation of the empirical model, was statistically significant and useful for predictive purposes the separation efficiency of the floater with R2 > 90%. The results showed that the oil content in water and the interaction between the oil content in water and salinity, showed the highest values of the estimated effects among all the factors investigated, having great and positive influence on the separation efficiency. By analyzing the response surface was determined maximum removal efficiency above 90% for both measured for turbidity as a measure of color when in a saline medium (30 g/L), the high oil concentrations (306 ppm) using low concentrations of de-emulsifying (1,1 ppm) and at pH close to neutral

Desenvolvimento de um sistema foto-oxidativo visando aplicação no tratamento de águas produzidas em campos de petróleo

Increasing concern with the environment, in addition to strict laws, has induced the industries to find altenatives to the treatment of their wastes. Actually, the oil industry has sought solutions to overcome a big environmental problem, i.e., oil field produced water being discharged to the sea. These effluents have organic compounds dissolved, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX). These compounds are difficult to be removed and have high toxicity. The advanced oxidation processes - AOP are effective to degradation of these organic compounds, because they generate hydroxyl radicals with high potential of oxidation. This work includes the reactor photochemical development applied in the photodegradation treatment (by photo-Fenton process) of wastewaters containing organic compounds dissolved, aiming at treatment and recovery the oil field produced water. The studied reactor allowed the evaluation of two ultraviolet radiation sources that is the main factor to describe the feasibility of the photo¬Fenton treatment, i.e., sun and black light fluorescent lamps, and other relevant variables the process: concentration of reagents, irradiated area and also various reactor configurations to maximize the use of radiation. The organic matter degradation was verified with samples collected during the experimental and analyzed with a total organic carbon analyzer (TOC), which expressed the results in terms of mgC/L. The solar radiation was more effective than radiation from the lamps. it's an important factor for the operation costs cutting. Preliminary experiments applied to oil field produced water treatment have showed satisfactory results, reducing up to 76 % of organic matter