Bioremediation

Bioremediation is a soil decontamination technology based on the use of the biodegradation capacity of microorganisms to eliminate soil contaminants by transforming them into harmless products or fully mineralizing them to CO2 and H2O.

Existing technologies are grouped into two modalities: intrinsic bioremediation or natural bioattenuation, and targeted bioremediation.

The first modality is based on the capacity of native microbial populations to, naturally and at the same time as other physical chemical processes, such as volatilisation, eliminate contaminants.

Targeted bioremediation consists of increasing degradation microbial activity, be it by stimulating the activity of native microorganisms present at the actual site (biostimulation), or by adding microbial inoculants (bioaugmentation or bioreinforcement).