OILY MICROCOSM · Mechanistic Microscale Approach to the Microbial Degradation of Oil-Droplets in Subsea Crude Oil Releases
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-11-01 → 2020-01-31
- EU contribution
- €176,408
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Mechanistic Microscale Approach to the Microbial Degradation of Oil-Droplets in Subsea Crude Oil Releases
In the aftermath of natural or accidental releases of crude oil in the sea, part of the oil ends up in clouds of droplets that travel along with underwater sea currents and disperse deep into the oceans. The droplets may be created either at the sea surface during the breakup of floating oil layers by sea waves, or at the seafloor during the extrusion of crude oil from natural cracks and broken wellheads. In spite of the frequent and extended contamination of marine waters with hydrocarbons from surface and deep-sea oil spills, including massive spills like the Ixtoc I (1979), Exxon Valdez (1989), Prestige (2002) and many others, the occurrence and significance of underwater droplet clouds was only discovered during the recent Deepwater Horizon event (2010). Since then, numerous studies have demonstrated that excessive amounts of dispersed oil droplets in seawater disturb the established dynamics of the local ecosystem (e.g., carbon cycle, marine microbiome structure, micronutrient and oxygen depletion, marine snow blooms). On top of that, when microsized oil droplets are ingested by fish and other marine animals, not only they pose an imminent risk of toxicity to the animals but also might go up the food chain and end on the plate of humans. At present, there are no practical means for the collection or in situ treatment of oil droplets in vast bodies of marine waters and, thus, the lifetime of underwater droplet clouds is determined by natural attenuation processes, mainly dissolution into the seawater and biodegradation by oil-eating microbial communities. It is therefore imperative to understand and quantify the physical and biological mechanisms that rule the fate of dispersed oil droplets in marine waters and, upon that knowledge, build technologies that will enable the mitigation of pertinent adverse effects. The overarching scope of the OILY MICROCOSM project is to obtain an improved understanding of the fundamental microscale mechanisms that underpin the biodegradation of droplet clouds by microbes at both the single-droplet and droplet-population levels through a creative combination of microfluidics, advanced imaging and computational modeling.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In oligotrophic marine ecosystems, the natural or accidental release of crude oil marks the beginning of a season of feast for indigenous microbial consortia that have developed appropriate adaptive machinery to access and assimilate hydrocarbons. Biodegradation and bioemulsification are among the key processes by which marine microbes strongly affect the transport and fate of crude oil in the sea. Unraveling of the coupled physical and biochemical interactions between microbes and oil droplets will be a major enabler for achieving a new level of prediction of crude oil dispersion as well as for developing more efficient bioremediation techniques to combat oil spills in marine environments. The proposed research project aims at an improved understanding of the fundamental microscale mechanisms that underpin oil biodegradation with a highly innovative focus at both the single-droplet and droplet-population levels. In particular, at the single-droplet level, our focus is on the droplet-microbe interactions and the dynamics of biofilm formation over the oily substrate. Ultimately, the developing interfaces between biofilms, oil and water will be tracked and quantitatively visualized. At the droplet-population level, our focus is on the evolution of the droplet size distribution (DSD) and its impact on the average biodegradation rates for a cloud of oil microdroplets (10-60 um). The research methodology is based on a creative combination of state-of-the-art microfluidics, biochemical analyses and computational modeling. All in all, this project is expected to provide a unique and original approach to a fundamental problem in microbial ecology that has wide societal and economical repercussions. Importantly, a profound impetus will be given to the Researcher’s career via strengthening his publication record and his professional network of contacts.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- POLYTECHNEIO KRITIS · CHANIACoordinatorGreece
- MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · CambridgeUnited States
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union