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Bioremediation of Water Contaminated with Petroleum Hydrocarbons

Author assesses emerging technology to treat hydrocarbon contaminants using biological medium. Paper by Sudhakar Viswanathan

Interest is rapidly growing for bioremediation, a technological process whereby biological systems are harnessed to effect the clean up of polluted sites. Nowadays, treatment of water and soil, contaminated with organic and inorganic pollutants, typically relies on microbial systems, most readily applied to the transformation of organic contaminants. Bioremediation is a relatively new concept, and a rapidly evolving area of environmental engineering. Engineers with bioremediation skills target these vast numbers of leaking underground storage tanks (LUST) throughout the industrial world Engineers working in the groundwater and soil remediation must deal with exacting regulations, serious public health issues, and a great deal of uncertainty over conditions in subsurface systems.

Petroleum is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons containing numerous toxic compounds, though the full impact of petroleum releases into water systems have yet to be determined. Numerous health effects are related to petroleum hydrocarbons and many components are carcinogenic to humans. While a variety of physical, chemical, and biological methods that have evolved from the effort in oil clean up at sea are available for petroleum cleanup, bioremediation methods, which exploit naturally occurring microorganisms, possess the greatest potential. Advancement in technological and the growing economy is bringing in great progress in research and development in bioremediation as a natural solution.

This paper presents bioremediation concepts, looks into the history of bioremediation, and provides an outlook of bioremediation practices, with special emphasis on bioremediation of water contaminated with petrochemical hydrocarbons.

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Posted by Moderator on September 3rd, 1999 filed in review Discuss now »