Review

Bioremediation: A tool for environmental cleaning

Md. Zeyaullah^1*, Mohammed Atif¹, Badrul Islam², Azza S. Abdelkafe¹, P. Sultan¹, Mohamed A. ElSaady³ and Arif Ali⁴

¹Omar Al-Mukhtar University, Al-Baida, Libya.

²Faculty of Medicine, Omar Al-Mukthar University, Al Baida, Libya.

³Faculty of Pharmacy, Omar Al-Mukthar University, Al Baida, Libya,

⁴Central Laboratory and Research, Al-Thowra Teaching Hospital, Al-Baida, Libya.  ⁴Department of Biotechnology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi - 110025, India

*Corresponding author. E-mail: zeya786@gmail.com.

Accepted 20 May, 2009

   Abstract

Sites contaminated by heavy metals and other pollutants are common through out the world. Researchers developed bioremediation as one feasible way to accelerate or encourage the degradation of pollutants from such affected sites. The basis of bioremediation is that all organisms remove substances from the environment to carry out their growth and metabolism. Bioremediation is not effective only for the degradation of pollutants but it can also be used to clean unwanted substances from air, soil, water and raw materials form industrial waste. With this in view, though many engineered processes for applying bioremediation have been developed but the inexpensive treatment of such sites has remained an elusive goal. Unlike organic contaminants, which often can be metabolized inexpensively into harmless substances such as carbon dioxide and water, metals and their salts that typically inhibit rather than support biological processes. However, in recent years there has been a flurry of interest developed in the implementation of biological approaches for bioremediation of at least some forms of inorganic contamination and paved the way for some other promising technologies to emerge.

Key words: Bioremediation, growth and metabolism, pollutants, environment.