Biodegradation of Nitroaromatic Compounds and Explosives


Book Description

Filled with practical applications and research, Biodegradation of Nitroaromatic Compounds and Explosives presents an international perspective on environmental contamination from explosives. It covers biodegradation strategies for DNT and a wide variety of other nitroaromatic compounds of environmental significance and makes the information access




Wastewater Treatment Engineering


Book Description

This book provides useful information about bioremediation, phytoremediation, and mycoremediation of wastewater and some aspects of the chemical wastewater treatment processes, including ion exchange, neutralization, adsorption, and disinfection. Additionally, this book elucidates and illustrates the wastewater treatment plants in terms of plant sizing, plant layout, plant design, and plant location. Cutting-edge topics include wet air oxidation of aqueous wastes, biodegradation of nitroaromatic compounds, biological treatment of sanitary landfill leachate, bacterial strains for the bioremediation of olive mill wastewater, gelation of arabinoxylans from maize wastewater, and modeling wastewater evolution.







Biodegradation of Nitroaromatic Compounds


Book Description

During the past five years increased awareness of environmental contamination by nitroaromatic compounds has led to a dramatic increase in research on their biodegradation. The resulting discoveries have markedly extended our understanding of degradation mecha nisms and pathways in bacteria and fungi. Futhermore, this new basic knowledge promises the development of field applications of biodegradation systems for nitroaromatic com pounds. In May of 1994, an International Symposium on the Biodegradation of Nitro aromatic Compounds was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. This symposium brought together the scientists at the frontiers of research into the biodegradation of nitro aromatic compounds. The invited speakers were asked to review their area of expertise and write a critical, comprehensive synthesis of their work and related work by others. This book is the result of their efforts. The emphasis of the reviews is on basic research in biodegradation and biotransfor mation. Therefore, the reactions of nitroaromatic compounds in plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, soil, and even nonbiological systems are considered. The goal of the work is to provide the reader with an appreciation of the tremendous range of possibilities for metabolism of aromatic nitro compounds and the experimental approaches used to understand them. This volume should be of interest to biochemists, microbiologists, engineers, toxicologists, and anyone interested in the behavior of synthetic chemicals in the environment or in living systems. Furthermore, a variety of commercial applications can be envisioned for some of the reactions described here.




Microbial Technology for Health and Environment


Book Description

Rampant industrialization has caused high levels of contamination by various toxic chemicals in our water bodies, which is a matter of concern in terms of ecosystems, as well as human and animal health. Polluted wastewater can contaminate drinking water and is also is a causal factor for bio-magnification of heavy metals into our food cycle. In the last decade, several methodologies have been adopted to clean the wastewaters, and among these, microbial remediation has emerged as an effective technology. Several variants of microbial technologies have been developed for wastewater treatment and biodegradation specific to the industry, type of waste and toxicity of the chemicals. This book describes the recent advances in microbial degradation and microbial remediation of various xenobiotic compounds in soil and wastewater. It also explains various modern microbial technologies for biodegradation and wastewater treatment. It covers various microbial technologies for wastewater treatment, biodegradation, bioremediation and solid waste management. Gathering contributions from leading international it focuses on the status quo in industrial wastewater treatment and its biodegradation. The book is intended for researchers in the field of industrial wastewater, students of environmental sciences and practitioners in water pollution abatement.




Handbook of Research on Inventive Bioremediation Techniques


Book Description

The rapid progression of technology has significantly impacted population growth, urbanization, and industrialization in modern society. These developments, while positive on the surface, have created critical environmental problems in recent years. The Handbook of Research on Inventive Bioremediation Techniques is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly information on optimizing bioremediation technologies and methods to control pollution and enhance sustainability and conservation initiatives for the environment. Highlighting pivotal research perspectives on topics such as biodegradation, microbial tools, and green technology, this publication is ideally designed for academics, professionals, graduate students, and practitioners interested in emerging techniques for environmental decontamination.




Microbial Degradation of Xenobiotics


Book Description

Our interest in the microbial biodegradation of xenobiotics has increased many folds in recent years to find out sustainable ways for environmental cleanup. Bioremediation and biotransformation processes harness the naturally occurring ability of microbes to degrade, transform or accumulate a wide range of organic pollutants. Major methodological breakthroughs in recent years through detailed genomic, metagenomic, proteomic, bioinformatic and other high-throughput analyses of environmentally relevant microorganisms have provided us unprecedented insights into key biodegradative pathways and the ability of organisms to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The degradation of a wide spectrum of organic pollutants and wastes discharged into the environment by anthropogenic activities is an emerging need today to promote sustainable development of our society with low environmental impact. Microbial processes play a major role in the removal of recalcitrant compounds taking advantage of the astonishing catabolic versatility of microorganisms to degrade or transform such compounds. New breakthroughs in sequencing, genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and imaging are generating vital information which opens a new era providing new insights of metabolic and regulatory networks, as well as clues to the evolution of degradation pathways and to the molecular adaptation strategies to changing environmental conditions. Functional genomic and metagenomic approaches are increasing our understanding of the relative importance of different pathways and regulatory networks to carbon flux in particular environments and for particular compounds. New approaches will certainly accelerate the development of bioremediation technologies and biotransformation processes in coming years for natural attenuation of contaminated environments




Microbial Interventions in Agriculture and Environment


Book Description

Microbial communities and their functions play a crucial role in the management of ecological, environmental and agricultural health on the Earth. Microorganisms are the key identified players for plant growth promotion, plant immunization, disease suppression, induced resistance and tolerance against stresses as the indicative parameters of improved crop productivity and sustainable soil health. Beneficial belowground microbial interactions with the rhizosphere help plants mitigate drought and salinity stresses and alleviate water stresses under the unfavorable environmental conditions in the native soils. Microorganisms that are inhabitants of such environmental conditions have potential solutions for them. There are potential microbial communities that can degrade xenobiotic compounds, pesticides and toxic industrial chemicals and help remediate even heavy metals, and thus they find enormous applications in environmental remediation. Microbes have developed intrinsic metabolic capabilities with specific metabolic networks while inhabiting under specific conditions for many generations and, so play a crucial role. The book Microbial Interventions in Agriculture and Environment is an effort to compile and present a great volume of authentic, high-quality, socially-viable, practical and implementable research and technological work on microbial implications. The whole content of the volume covers protocols, methodologies, applications, interactions, role and impact of research and development aspects on microbial interventions and technological outcomes in prospects of agricultural and environmental domain including crop production, plan-soil health management, food & nutrition, nutrient recycling, land reclamation, clean water systems and agro-waste management, biodegradation & bioremediation, biomass to bioenergy, sanitation and rural livelihood security. The covered topics and sub-topics of the microbial domain have high implications for the targeted and wide readership of researchers, students, faculty and scientists working on these areas along with the agri-activists, policymakers, environmentalists, advisors etc. in the Government, industries and non-government level for reference and knowledge generation.




Biochemistry of microbial degradation


Book Description

Life on the planet depends on microbial activity. The recycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen, phosphate and all the other elements that constitute living matter are continuously in flux: microorganisms participate in key steps in these processes and without them life would cease within a few short years. The comparatively recent advent of man-made chemicals has now challenged the environment: where degradation does not occur, accumulation must perforce take place. Surprisingly though, even the most recalcitrant of molecules are gradually broken down and very few materials are truly impervious to microbial attack. Microorganisms, by their rapid growth rates, have the most rapid turn-over of their DNA of all living cells. Consequently they can evolve altered genes and therefore produce novel enzymes for handling "foreign" compounds - the xenobiotics - in a manner not seen with such effect in other organisms. Evolution, with the production of micro-organisms able to degrade molecules hitherto intractable to breakdown, is therefore a continuing event. Now, through the agency of genetic manipulation, it is possible to accelerate this process of natural evolution in a very directed manner. The time-scale before a new microorganism emerges that can utilize a recalcitrant molecule has now been considerably shortened by the application of well-understood genetic principles into microbiology. However, before these principles can be successfully used, it is essential that we understand the mechanism by which molecules are degraded, otherwise we shall not know where best to direct these efforts.




Xenobiotics in the Soil Environment


Book Description

This book describes the vast variety of xenobiotics, such as pesticides, antibiotics, antibiotic resistance genes, agrochemicals and other pollutants, their interactions with the soil environment, and the currently available strategies and techniques for soil decontamination and bioremediation. Topics covered include: transport mechanisms of pollutants along the Himalayas; use of earthworms in biomonitoring; metagenomic strategies for assessing contaminated sites; xenobiotics in the food chain; phyto-chemical remediation; biodegradation by fungi; and the use of enzymes and potential microbes in biotransformation. Accordingly, the book offers a valuable guide for scientists in the fields of environmental ecology, soil and food sciences, agriculture, and applied microbiology.