Bioremediation of Polluted Waters Using Microorganisms
By L. Coelho, H. C. Rezende, L. Coelho, Priscila Afonso Rodrigues Sousa, Danielle F. O. Melo, N. Coelho. 2015
148 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Water pollution is an issue of great concern worldwide, and it can be broadly divided into three main categories, that is, contamination by organic compounds, inorganic compounds (e.g., heavy metals), and microorganisms. In recent years, the number of research studies concerning the use of efficient processes to clean up and minimize the pollution of water bodies has been increasing. In this context, the use of bioreme‐ diation processes for the removal of toxic metals from aqueous solutions is gaining considerable attention. Bioremediation can be defined as the ability of certain biomolecules or types of biomass to bind and concentrate selected ions or other molecules present in aqueous solutions. Bioremediation using microorganisms shows great potential for future development due to its environmental compatibility and possible cost-effectiveness. A wide range of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, yeasts, and algae, can act as biologically active methylators, which are able to at least modify toxic species. Many microbial detoxification processes involve the efflux or exclusion of metal ions from the cell, which in some cases can result in high local concentrations of metals at the cell surface, where they can react with biogenic ligands and precipitate. Although microorganisms cannot destroy metals, they can alter their chemical properties via a surprising array of mechanisms. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide an update on the recent literature concerning the strategies available for the remediation of metal-contaminated water bodies using microorganisms and to critically discuss their main advantages and weaknesses. The focus is on the heavy metals associated with environmental contamination, for © 2015 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. instance, lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and chromium (Cr), which are potentially hazardous to ecosystems. The types of microorganisms that are used in bioremedia‐ tion processes due to their natural capacity to biosorb toxic heavy metal ions are discussed in detail. This chapter summarizes existing knowledge on various aspects of the fundamentals and applications of bioremediation and critically reviews the obstacles to its commercial success and future perspectives.
Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Water Science and Technology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c8e3a56ed9783ed5ddb507be8e11899da91d789b
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Citations in the corpus
- Microbial Biodiversity and Bioremediation Assessment Through Omics Approaches (2020, background): “Microorganisms, such as fungi, yeast, and bacteria have been considered to be outstanding organisms for detoxification of pollutants (Zhong and Zhou, 2002; Luciene et al., 2015; Abou Seeda et al., 2017).”
- Heavy metal remediation and resistance mechanism of Aeromonas, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas: A review (2020, background): “Bacillus species also have a high chitin content in the cell wall, which functions as an effective biosorbent in addition to chitosan and glucans (Coelho et al., 2015).”