Chapter 14 - Microbial remediation for environmental cleanup

Abstract

Increased environmental contaminations, such as greenhouse gases, nuclear waste, heavy metals, pesticides, and hydrocarbons, are some contaminants that are detrimental to the environment and public health. Microbial bioremediation is recognized as a cost-effective, versatile, fast, and ecologically friendly method of removing toxins from the environment. Aerobic microorganisms, such as Nocardia, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Flavobacterium, Rhodococcus, as well as Mycobacterium, are generally employed in bioremediation. Ex situ or in situ microbial bioremediation depends on a number of elements, including biological factors, external conditions, nutrition availability, heat, levels of oxygen, moisture levels, pH, site assessment and selection, metal ions, and toxic chemicals. Biopiles, bioreactors, land farming, and windrows are examples of ex situ bioremediation processes. Techniques for in situ bioremediation are employed in enhanced bioremediation. Bioventing, bioslurping, biosparging, and permeable reactive barriers are all examples of in situ bioremediation. In microbial bioremediation, biofilm formation plays an important role, and different microbial enzymes involved in microbial bioremediation and microbial bioremediation can also be done using microbial bioreactors. Engineered bioreactors are favored for this purpose. Engineered bioreactors have now been designed to be used in bioremediation procedures to achieve various remediation goals by providing optimum parameters for microbial growth as well as biodegradation. In the process of bioremediation, designed bioreactors include packed, stirred tanks, airlifted, slurry phase, and partitioning phase reactors, among others. The implementation of bioremediation is currently limited due to the absence of understanding of the processes and control. This chapter is designed to present different bioremediation techniques used to remove pollution from environment. It also highlights different factors that affect bioremediation, how it can be improved, and function of biofilms in the process of bioremediation.