New knowledge to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Biotechnological solutions for degradation of pollutants of environmental concern, namely pesticides, pharmaceuticals, hormones and plasticizers, were developed. Bacterial strains with degradation activities towards those contaminants were obtained, kinetics of degradation were evaluated and optimized, metabolic pathway of degradation was deciphered using metabolomics approaches. Use of these bacteria through bioaugmentation for treatment of real wastewater was successful applied, resulting in removal of toxicity and estrogenic activity of treated wastewater. Aerobic granular sludge bioreactors for treatment of wastewater containing endocrine-disrupting compounds bioaugmented with degrading strains were operated, revealing robustness of the system to deal with the presence of contaminants and, the feasibility of the bioaugmentation with degrading strains to improve the removal of these contaminants. Microbial community dynamics were followed by next generation sequencing technologies.