Bioremediation of Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Contaminated Soils

Abstract

Crude oils have been primary sources of energy and fuels, such as petrodiesel. However, significant public concerns about the sustainability, price fluctuations, and adverse environmental impact of crude oils have emerged since the 1970s. Thus, biooils and biooil-based biodiesel fuels have emerged as alternatives to crude oils and crude oil-based petrodiesel fuels, respectively, in recent decades. Nowadays, although biodiesel fuels are being used increasingly, petrodiesel fuels are still used extensively in the transportation and power sectors. Therefore, there has been great public interest in petrodiesel fuels. However, petroleum hydrocarbons contaminate soil with significant ecotoxicity to terrestrial and aquatic organisms, resulting in much public concern regarding the potential loss of biodiversity. Therefore, it has been necessary to reduce the amount of toxic petroleum hydrocarbons in contaminated soil. Although there have been a number of reviews and book chapters in this field, there has been no review of the 20-most-cited articles. Thus, this chapter reviews these articles by highlighting the key findings of these most-prolific studies on the bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons in contaminated soil. Then, it discusses these key findings.