Researchers Try To Mitigate Olive Oil's Threat To Waterways

Oil and water don’t mix. Olive oil waste and water don’t, either — at least not in a way that’s healthy for the environment.

Even in small quantities, olive oil waste poses a major threat to the water supply. But a new approach to treatment uses yeast to mitigate the problem.

“A team of scientists is proposing to use yeast embedded in fibers to digest pollutants in the wastewater and produce a usable product such as ethanol,” according to an article released by the American Chemical Society.

Small amounts of olive oil waste can negatively affect the environment. “The liquid and solid waste which is left over from olive oil production is harmful to the environment because it can contain pesticides as well as toxic organic compounds. It is also acidic and has a high salinity. Such agricultural waste is difficult and expensive to dispose of properly,” according to the Olive Oil Times.

Yeast is capable of breaking down components in waste, but it is not effective to simply pour yeast into wastewater, because that could negatively affect the environment, as well. That’s why researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem tried capping the yeast within polymer fibers.

The results were published in Biomacromolecules, a journal published by American Chemical Society Publications.

“We utilized the yeast Candida tropicalis, which was isolated from olive water waste. It is particularly useful since it degrades phenol and other natural polyphenols, and it is capable of accumulating ethanol,” the study said.

The findings, per the study:

The electrospun yeast cells showed significant activity of bioremediation of phenol and produced ethanol, and, in addition, the metabolic processes remained active for a prolonged period. Comparison of electrospun cells to planktonic cells showed decreased cell activity; however, the olive water waste after treatment by the yeast was no longer toxic for Escherichia coli, suggesting that detoxification and prolonged viability and activity may outweigh the reduction of efficiency.

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