Editors: Manikant Tripathi, Durgesh Narain Singh

Bioremediation: Challenges and Advancements

eBook: US $79 Special Offer (PDF + Printed Copy): US $145
Printed Copy: US $105
Library License: US $316
ISBN: 978-981-5036-04-6 (Print)
ISBN: 978-981-5036-03-9 (Online)
Year of Publication: 2022
DOI: 10.2174/97898150360391220101

Introduction

Waste management is one of the major challenges for environmental and public health organizations for maintaining safety standards in any area. Population growth and urbanization increase the difficulty in maintaining a sustainable waste management system. Bioremediation refers to the use of living organisms in processes designed to remove toxic chemicals present in waste material. Bioremediation represents a sustainable way to remove a range of environmental pollutants.

Bioremediation: Challenges and Advancements covers the subject of bioremediation in eight chapters that focus on a broad range of waste sources, their adverse impacts on the ecosystem, and the advanced strategies for their remediation. Each chapter also highlights the problems encountered in bioremediation processes.

Key features:

- Comprehensive coverage of bioremediation in 8 reader-friendly chapters

- Highlights methods and challenges of bioremediation in one volume.

- Introduces the reader to bioremediation

- Explains recent biotechnological methods for removing heavy metals and xenobiotic compounds

- Describes strategies including physical, chemical, and biological methods to mitigate radioactive waste from contaminated sites and water bodies

- Details the use of microbial-aided remediation techniques for the management of biomedical and electronic wastes, and its impact on the ecosystem

- Describes bioremediation technologies for decontamination of solid waste pollutants

- Showcases the application of Omics approaches such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to improve bioremediation processes.

- Covers bioremediation of agro-wastes

- Includes detailed references

This book is an informative reference for scholars (researchers, undergraduate and graduate students of environmental sciences, microbiology and biotechnology) professionals (environmental engineers) and researchers, giving each a good understanding of the significance of bioremediation in solid waste management and the restoration of contaminated sites.

Foreword

The process of production and consumption to meet the incessant demands of mankind leads to the generation of different undesirable pollutants and waste materials. Such undesirable products are potential threats to the environment and pose different kinds of risks to mankind. We need a proper management system and decontamination technologies for the abatement of pollutants and waste materials in a sustainable manner. Most of the decontamination methods are not only costly and energy-consuming, but the generated byproducts are toxic to the environment. Nevertheless, bioremediation is an ecofriendly and economical method that employs different types of microorganisms for the removal of pollutants from the environment. Microorganisms utilize several strategies to remove contaminants, including enzymatic detoxification, adsorption to cell surfaces, intracellular accumulation, sequestration into exopolysaccharides, volatilizations, and biotransformation into their non-toxic form. The wide metabolic and physiological capabilities of microorganisms allow them to survive in extreme environments. These properties render microorganisms the incredible potential of bioremediation, but microorganisms also meet several challenges when applied to the environment for bioremediation. Researchers are working consistently to combat challenges for the successful development of new bioremediation technologies.

This book titled “Bioremediation: Challenges and Advancements” discusses the concepts of bioremediation, challenges, and advancement in bioremediation of different pollutants such as hydrocarbons, xenobiotics, heavy metals, radioactive compounds, and phytoremediation of industrial wastes. Some of the chapters that make the book unique and distinguish it from its contemporaries are the management of plastic wastes and e-wastes, biomedical wastes, and the management of agricultural wastes. Another very interesting chapter is “Application of ‘omics’ in bioremediation.” I hope this book will be beneficial for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and environmental scientists involved in the bioremediation of different contaminated sites.

Prof. Rup Lal
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Lodhi Road
New Delhi-110003, India
(Former Professor, Department of Zoology, University of
Delhi, Delhi-110007).
India