Chapter 6 - Role of Enzymes in Environment Cleanup/Remediation

Abstract

Nowadays environmental pollution (including water, air, and soil compartments) has reached elevated levels to be of great concern for humans and other living organisms. Therefore several research efforts have been dedicated to find effective, eco-friendly, and possibly low-cost tools to mitigate the pollution and to clean up and restore polluted environments. In this context, enzymes play a vital role and are potent and specialized catalysts able to transform a variety of compounds including environmental pollutants. Moreover, their catalytic capability is so high that also recalcitrant (ie, less or not transformable, at all) compounds can be converted to safer or innocuous final products. Due to their peculiar properties, enzymes have been considered a good alternative to traditional, non-biological cleanup methodologies. Several examples are available in literature on the use of enzymes for the transformation of single or complex mixtures of pollutants. Attempts at their direct utilization for the recovery of polluted bodies have been addressed, as well. Moreover, enzymes may be useful for monitoring of polluted sites, before and after restoration treatments. Enzymes present both advantages and disadvantages with respect to other biological catalysts although limitations still exist for enzyme application at field scale. However, future improvements are possible, envisaging larger applications of these fascinating and precious catalysts.