NASA Spinoff

Bacteria Provide Cleanup of Oil Spills, Wastewater

“We’re into just about anything you can imagine that involves organic material degradation,” Schneider says. The company has collected bacterial species from around the world and carefully formulates its products using specific strains that work in harmony to target each customer’s environmental issue—no genetic engineering involved and no special handling measures or equipment required.

“Wood, for example, is slow to break down in nature,” Schneider says. “But you can find microorganisms that can break down wood very quickly. You can target specific applications.”

altMicro-Bac offers more than specific waste treatment solutions. The company is also a leading provider of microbial products for improving oil production. Oil wells often struggle with the accumulation of compounds like paraffins and asphaltenes, components of crude oil that can settle out and create deposits that can bring oil production to a standstill and require costly maintenance treatments to remove. Micro-Bac’s oilfield products, which include strains of bacteria from the company’s NASA-derived formulation, break down those deposits, leading to significant boosts in productivity—one Kansas oil well increased its production over 500 percent after treatment with Micro-Bac products.

These same qualities make Micro-Bac’s oil-targeted products effective tools for countering environmentally damaging oil spills. The company has assisted in the cleanup of crude oil spills in Ecuador, and officials called upon Micro-Bac’s microbial solutions to help mitigate the environmental impact of the catastrophic 2010 oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana by breaking down oil that reached shore.

Micro-Bac continues to develop targeted biotechnology for its customers’ waste treatment and oil production applications, including a granulated version of its liquid crude oil degrading products. Customers will be able to keep the dried product on hand to simply sprinkle on any small oil spills. Meanwhile, the derivatives of the company’s small-scale NASA collaboration continue to help address large-scale environmental and energy concerns in the United States and beyond.

“A wellspring of utility has come out of that work,” says Schneider.

Mega-BacTF™ is a trademark of Micro-Bac International Inc.
Mega-Bac® is a registered trademark of Micro-Bac International Inc.