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Photosynthetic bacteria: an eco-friendly and cheap tool for bioremediation

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Abstract

Environmental management is crucial for sustainable growth and development. The use of microorganisms to clean up contaminated environment provides cheap alternative method to the conventional treatment methods. But the choice of easily grown, viable and effective natural occurring microorganism to do the cleaning is a major challenge. In this article we presented and reviewed the application of photosynthetic bacteria in bioremediation due to their utilisation of various kinds of pollutants, minimum nutrients requirement and the possibility of generating valuable products concomitantly cleaning the contaminated environment. Pollutants such as pesticides, heavy metals, dyes, crude oil and odour with the specific photosynthetic bacteria capable of degrading the pollutants were identified and discussed in this article. The possible value added products to be generated as well as the mechanism of degradation are also highlighted and discussed in the article. The utilisation of carbon dioxide and the generation of value added products while cleaning up polluted environment are the major advantages of using these bacteria in bioremediation and have both environmental and economic benefits.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) for funding this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences and Health Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

    Ahmad Idi, Muhamad Hanif Md Nor, Mohd Firdaus Abdul Wahab & Zaharah Ibrahim

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  1. Ahmad Idi
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  2. Muhamad Hanif Md Nor
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  3. Mohd Firdaus Abdul Wahab
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  4. Zaharah Ibrahim
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Correspondence to Zaharah Ibrahim.

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Idi, A., Md Nor, M.H., Abdul Wahab, M.F. et al. Photosynthetic bacteria: an eco-friendly and cheap tool for bioremediation. Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol 14, 271–285 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11157-014-9355-1

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