Bioremediation: an overview on current practices, advances, and new perspectives in environmental pollution treatment

Abstract

[Excerpt] Environmental pollution generated the need to search for new environmentally friendly, low-cost, and more efficient environmental clean-up techniques for its removal or reduction. Bioremediation, a branch of environmental biotechnology, is nowadays considered as one of the most promising alternatives. This technology uses the amazing ability of microorganisms or plants to accumulate, detoxify, degrade, or remove environmental contaminants. Bioremediation provides the transformation and/or even removal of organic and inorganic pollutants, even when they are present at low concentration. Continuous efforts are still made to understand the mechanisms by which microorganisms and plants remove or transform environmental pollutants. Thus, the purpose of this special issue was to explore different visions on bioremediation, while addressing recent advances and new ideas in the perspective of efficient process scale-up in view of application at larger scales.

Authors’ contributions cover various topics with a range of papers including original research and review articles spanning studies in remediation of different environments which outline new findings in the biotechnology field. This special issue contains five papers including one review article and four original research articles. A brief description of these five manuscripts is detailed below. [...]