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Green Chemistry in Environmental Sustainability and Chemical Education pp 1–13Cite as

Bioremediation of Xenobiotics: An Eco-friendly Cleanup Approach

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Abstract

Xenobiotics are the chemicals, which are not found in nature and are said to be foreign substances in the atmosphere. These compounds are synthesized by human beings e.g. pesticides, that may be added in the soil to kill the harmful pests but in addition this, these pesticides also kill the beneficial microorganisms that are responsible for the fertility of soil. Moreover, these compounds can be accumulated in food chain and cause harm to the flora and fauna of such ecosystem. For the degradation of such xenobiotic compounds various physico-chemical and biological methods have been used but all these methods produce toxic by-products that are hazardous to the environment. Thus Bioremediation is a promising tool for the degradation of such compounds. In the present paper, we have emphasized on the remediation of xenobiotics by using microorganisms. Bacteria and Fungi play an important role in breaking down certain hazardous substances into simpler fragmented forms. Bacteria, which are used for bioremediation of xenobiotics includes aerobic, anaerobic, Methanotrophic, Methanogenic bacteria, Cyanobacteria and Sphingomonads. Pseudomonas species has been used for the degradation of several xenobiotic compounds. In addition to this, certain fungi such as Aspergillus, Rhizopus, Botrytis, Neurospora etc. have been used for the heavy metal biosorption. Hence we can say that fungi are one of the promising tools for the eco-friendly degradation of xenobiotic.

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Acknowledgements

Author would like to thanks Prof. A.K. Bhatia, HOD and Prof. Anoop Gupta, Director, Dept. of Biotechnology, GLA University to encourage during this work.

Conflicts of Interest

Author declares no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, GLA University, Mathura, UP, India

    Alok Bharadwaj

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  1. Alok Bharadwaj
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Correspondence to Alok Bharadwaj .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Sciences, Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA

    Virinder S. Parmar

  2. Department of Chemistry, Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    Priti Malhotra

  3. Department of Chemistry, Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    Divya Mathur

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Bharadwaj, A. (2018). Bioremediation of Xenobiotics: An Eco-friendly Cleanup Approach. In: Parmar, V., Malhotra, P., Mathur, D. (eds) Green Chemistry in Environmental Sustainability and Chemical Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8390-7_1

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