Methods to Protect Beneficial Bacteria from Contaminants to Preserve Water Quality

Many types of bacteria perform critical ecological functions, such as cycling carbon and other nutrients, which enable life to exist. In fact, humans harness these types of bacteria in certain engineered systems, such as wastewater treatment plants and landfills, to provide various benefits such as protecting surface waters from excess nitrogen, decomposing solid waste, and treating wastewater. Unfortunately, the environments within these systems where the beneficial bacteria live are also environments that receive a complex array of synthetic chemicals that can negatively affect bacterial function, particularly when present in mixtures. One such class of chemicals that find their way into these systems is perfluorinated chemicals, which research has suggested can cause other co-contaminants to be more toxic to bacteria. Researchers at the University of Minnesota are using this appropriation to research how and why these beneficial bacteria are affected by exposure to perfluorinated chemicals entering the wastewater treatment system in order to help develop and engineer methods to better protect and enhance the important ecological functions these bacteria provide.