Recent Trends in the Utilization of Biosurfactant for the Treatment of Textile Waste and Industrial Effluents

Abstract

The impeded advent of urbanization and the high rate of rapid growth in the level of industrialization have affected negatively several biological diversities and natural processes that occur in the ecosystem. This has been identified as one of the major problems affecting most countries that are just developing most especially in sub-Saharan area of Africa and Asia. The active role of beneficial microorganism in the ecorestoration of heavily polluted environment with textile waste and industrial effluents cannot be overemphasized. It has been observed that the process of bioremediation is normally hampered by the high solubility rate of some pollutants, which makes their bioactivity to become boosted whenever surfactants are added to them. Besides couple with all other adverse negative effects, there is a need to search for a biological and natural compound that could serve as a sustainable solution that will mitigate all the highlighted environmental challenges. The application of biosurfactant has been recognized over the years as the next-generation biotechnological tool that could avert all the aforementioned environmental pollution problems, most especially environments that are heavily polluted with textile waste and industrial effluents. This chapter intends to show a comprehensive review about the bioremediation and decolorization perspective of biosurfactant most especially for ecorestoration of environments that are heavily polluted with textile waste and industrial effluents. Furthermore, more highlight was provided on some recent biotechnological techniques that could be applied for the identification, screening, and characterization of beneficial microorganism that possesses a very high capability to produce a high amount of biosurfactant. Also, current structural elucidation techniques were elaborated that could be utilized for the characterization of novel biosurfactant utilized in the management of textile waste and industrial effluents such as NMR, HPLC, GCMS, FTIR, and TLC.