Bioremediation

Synthetic chemicals and heavy metals are major soil, water, and air pollutants. Most of these pollutants are long lived and sustained in the environment for hundreds of years. [Page 29]Some of these compounds, such as pesticides, herbicides, and dyes, are toxic to living organisms and cannot be decomposed by natural decaying processes. Pollution accumulation poses short-term and long-term threats on living organisms and their environment, often indicated by pollutant “action” and “trigger” levels that denote the potential danger associated with the pollution concentration.

In recent decades, biological organisms, particularly microbes, have been utilized to assist in the removal of environmental pollutants from the surface, soil, and atmosphere in a process known as bioremediation. The ability of biological organisms to remove a specific pollutant is controlled by ...