Abstract
Biological wastewater treatment, as the largest application of biotechnology in the world, has developed for more than a century, and novel postulates for addressing the global challenges of water scarcity and the pollution of aquatic environments have been put forward worldwide. While numerous challenges, though interrelated, have been addressed singly, sporadically alleviating one problem while aggravating others. We posit the absence of a conceptual framework to empirically link wastewater treatment microbiome characteristics (microbial processes, community properties, and membership) to each other and broader system levels that they affect. Accordingly, selected pivotal findings to exemplify past and future roles of wastewater microbiology as a momentous subdiscipline of microbial ecology is presented. Initiation, integration, and optimization of circular economy in wastewater systems with perspicuous potentiality for curtailed energy and chemical use, and augmented energy production and resource recovery aim to transform environmental engineering from forestalling pollution to explicable innovation for sustainable systems engineering. We conclude by discussing the main challenges concerning economics and value chain development, environment and health, and society and policy issues.
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Sharma, S., Sharma, S. (2023). Microbial Biotechnology for Circular Economy in Wastewater Treatment: Potentials, Technologies, and Challenges. In: Shah, M.P. (eds) Advanced and Innovative Approaches of Environmental Biotechnology in Industrial Wastewater Treatment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-2598-8_1
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