Institute of Microbiology Paulo de Góes, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, 373 CCS, Bl E, Cidade Universitária, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21941-902, Brazil.
Institute of Microbiology Paulo de Góes, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, 373 CCS, Bl E, Cidade Universitária, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21941-902, Brazil; IMAM-AquaRio - Rio Marine Aquarium Research Center, Praça Muhammad Ali, Gambôa, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20220-360, Brazil.
Sci Total Environ. 2019 May 20;666:743-758. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.153. Epub 2019 Feb 15.
Petroleum has been the world's major source of energy since the middle of the twentieth century, leading to positive changes but also social, political, and environmental problems worldwide. Oil contamination affects all ecosystems, and the remediation of polluted sites using environmentally friendly strategies is crucial. Here, we report an analysis of the patent documents of potential petroleum bioremediation techniques that use microbes to clean seawater. The patent search was performed using Orbit Intelligence®, SciFinder® and the Derwent World Patents Index®. A group of 500 patent documents were validated according to the search objective and carefully studied. Increases in patent deposits coincide with periods following widely reported oil spills, suggesting a relationship between media disclosure and stimulation of innovation activities. China leads the list of countries with patent applications in bioremediation with 152 deposits, followed by Russia with 133 and the US with 48. These three countries have completely different temporal deposit profiles, influenced by their historical, political, and economic scenarios. A total of 368 patents described degradation of the oil compounds exclusively by bacteria, 24 by fungi and yeasts, 1 by Archaea, 1 using a microalgal strain, and 32 by mixed consortia. The leading microbial genera found in the patents are Pseudomonas (114 patents), Bacillus (75), and Rhodococcus (60). In the top-10 list of microbial strains mostly cited/claimed, no genera are obligate hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria. This fact, together with the broad pattern found in the main International Patent Classification (IPC) codes, suggest that most of the documents are general bioremediation approaches and not focused on oil-polluted seawater. This work highlights the importance of stimulating the development of innovative environmentally friendly strategies focused on the degradation of oil hydrocarbons in marine ecosystems.
自 20 世纪中叶以来，石油一直是世界主要的能源来源，这带来了积极的变化，但也在全球范围内带来了社会、政治和环境问题。石油污染影响着所有的生态系统，因此使用环保策略来修复污染场地至关重要。在这里，我们报告了一项对利用微生物清洁海水的潜在石油生物修复技术的专利文献分析。专利搜索使用了 Orbit Intelligence®、SciFinder®和 Derwent World Patents Index®。根据搜索目标验证了一组 500 份专利文件，并对其进行了仔细研究。专利申请的增加与广泛报道的石油泄漏后的时期相吻合，这表明媒体披露与创新活动的刺激之间存在关系。在生物修复专利申请方面，中国以 152 项专利位居榜首，其次是俄罗斯（133 项）和美国（48 项）。这三个国家的专利申请时间分布完全不同，这受到其历史、政治和经济背景的影响。共有 368 项专利描述了仅由细菌降解石油化合物，24 项由真菌和酵母降解，1 项由古菌降解，1 项由微藻菌株降解，32 项由混合菌群降解。专利中发现的主要微生物属是假单胞菌（114 项专利）、芽孢杆菌（75 项）和红球菌（60 项）。在被引用/主张最多的微生物菌株的前 10 名名单中，没有一个属是专性烃类降解细菌。这一事实，再加上主要国际专利分类（IPC）代码中发现的广泛模式，表明大多数文件都是一般的生物修复方法，而不是专注于受石油污染的海水。这项工作强调了刺激开发创新的环保策略的重要性，这些策略侧重于海洋生态系统中石油碳氢化合物的降解。
