Bioremediation of organic pollutants: a mini review on current and critical strategies for wastewater treatment

Abstract

The release and prevalence of organic pollutants in an aqueous environment due to industrial discharges, agricultural operations, or inappropriate waste disposal is a huge threat to attaining sustainable development. As a result, wastewater treatment has attained a huge scope as it is evident from the number of articles published in recent years. Among the various techniques, bioremediation is one of the economical and eco-friendly means of wastewater treatment for the removal of organic pollutants. Microbial community and microalgae are the front runners of this process as they result in treated water and sludge or biomass formation. This mini review put forwards the types of organic pollutants and the bioremediation strategies using microbes and micro-algae, the role of genetically engineered microbes on the bio-remediation of organic pollutants and the recent applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques that have been implemented for improving the efficiency of the methods. The gap between practicability and applicability of the bioremediation process was also identified in this review. In addition, the economics and future research needs are discussed as outcomes.