Foreword

Over the decades, the environment and sustainable development have become major alarms in the engineering industry. The goal of environmental engineering is to ensure that societal development and the use of all resources such as water, land, and air are sustainable. In other words, environmental engineering can ensure the protection of the environment and understand and improve the interactions between human beings and natural environments. The effort to make such challenges effective and economically viable involves substantial interaction among chemical engineers, biochemical engineers, biotechnologists, biochemists, microbiologists, and geneticists. Environmental engineers are mainly associated with water, soil and air pollution problems, and develop technical solutions needed to solve, attenuate or control these problems in a manner that is compatible with legislative, economic, social, and political concerns. Chemical and civil engineers are particularly involved in such activities as water supply and sewerage, management of surface water and groundwater quality, remediation of contaminated sites, and solid waste management. Over the past few decades, biological scientists have produced vast amounts of quantitative information. The life sciences are now seeking a unified basis, with exact knowledge replacing the descriptive approach. Many biological phenomena are now understood and can be employed for the benefit of mankind. While in many cases it has been possible to achieve spectacular reductions in microbiological treatment costs, the risk involved in starting a microbiological venture has never been small, primarily due to a lack of knowledge and talents. Once the problem is recognized for what it is, a realistic solution may be seen which lies in breaking down barriers to communication. This will attract new talents to contribute to environmental engineering research and thereby help advance biotechnology.

This book is a multi-author book concerned with the engineering aspects of environmental science. It is intended to serve the established professionals and also to encourage students to take up careers in this field. The text is organized into areas important to environmental engineers who are working in the field of Sustainable Treatment Technologies for heavy metals, dyes, and other xenobiotics. Any text on environmental engineering is somewhat dated by the time of publication, because the field is moving and changing rapidly. Authors have included those fundamental topics and principles on which the practice of environmental engineering is grounded, illustrating them with contemporary examples. Additionally, chapters on bottlenecks in sustainable treatment of wastewaters using physicochemical processes and future prospects are included. Furthermore, the topic on sustainable mitigation of wastewater issues using microbes: hurdles and future strategies is also included. The analysis of bioprocesses as well as chemical processes has been given prominence in this book. The book deals with some hitherto neglected areas such as sustainable treatment technologies of heavy metals, dyes, and xenobiotics. It is expected that these contributions will stimulate many more talents to contribute through basic research and dissemination of knowledge to the "yet to emerge" hybrid discipline of environmental engineering.