........ published in NEWSLETTER # 62
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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 62
PERSPECTIVES IN BIOREMEDIATION: TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT
by Professor A. Scozzafava, University, Florence (Italy)
A NATO Advanced Study Institute was held in March 1995 in Lviv, Ukraine, on Biotechological Remediation of Contaminated Sites. The present book (NATO ASI SERIES 3-19) is based on the work done with all the participants.
Industrial and military activities lead to an inevitable accumulation of chemicals in the environment. Some of these chemicals can be naturally degraded either biologically or photochemically; however, many others are recalcitrant compounds for which the natural capacity of micro organisms of degrading them is quite marginal. Some of the compounds of greatest concern for their toxic effects include organic solvents, pesticides, chlorinated herbicides, petroleum products, heavy metal ions and radionuclides.
In most cases the persistent environmental contamination involve large amounts of soil and water whose masses alone preclude management by incineration, physical quarantine or other current process technologies. It is in this context that it is necessary to develop new technologies to address the different types of environmental sites, especially those which contain mixed chemical contamination. Under the pressure of current technological shortcomings, the field of bioremediation is developing.
Bioremediation involves the integration of a complex interaction of science and technology which attempts to direct the biochemical capabilities of native, adapted or modified biological systems toward specific environmental clean-up processes. Because the diverse metabolic capabilities of various biological systems range from the sequesting of heavy metal ions to specific ring cleavage of polyaromatic hydrocarbons or to phosphate hydrolysis of neurotoxic organo-phosphorous compounds, biochemically-based processes are being used to remediate very different situations.
This book is intended to be not a compendium of dated research activities but a text designed to introduce a broad audience to the science and engineering considerations from initial environmental site assessment to metabolic engineering which are needed to improve marginal biochemical detoxification activities. The purpose of this book is to serve as a primer for the understanding of the sciences and technologies that comprise the emerging area of bioremediation.
Reference books: 2-3, 2-9, 2-13, 2-17, 3-19