Bioremediation-Methods_and_Protocols.pdf

M ETHODS IN M OLECULAR

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Bioremediation

Methods and Protocols

Edited by

Stephen P. Cummings

University of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

Editor

Stephen P. Cummings

School of Applied Sciences

Div. Biomedical Sciences

Northumbria University

Ellison Place

Newcastle upon Tyne

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stephen.cummings@northumbria.ac.uk

ISSN 1064-3745

e-ISSN 1940-6029

ISBN 978-1-60761-438-8

e-ISBN 978-1-60761-439-5

DOI 10.1007/978-1-60761-439-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938190

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Preface

Anthropogenic activity has led to signiﬁcant degradation of the environment through the

discharge of pollutants. Enormous volumes of wastewater are generated daily by a range of

industrial, agricultural, and domestic activities. Much is treated prior to release; however,

accidental spillage can lead to signiﬁcant pollution incidents. In addition, the legacy of

industrial, agricultural, or military activity has resulted in long-term contamination prob-

lems in soil and sediments.

A key issue in treating contaminated soil and water is dealing with the diversity of

potentially toxic pollutants, including heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH),

cyanides, and radioactive material, often contained within the same waste. Frequently,

such chronically contaminated material is treated using stringent chemical methods or, for

solid waste, physical processes such as encapsulation. Whilst effective, such processes are

often expensive, environmentally damaging in their turn, and contain rather than remove

contaminated material. Bioremediation offers a viable alternative to these methods by

harnessing the degradative potential of biological systems.

Bioremediation has a long history. The exploitation of microbial activity to successfully

degrade organic pollutants in soil using land-farming techniques was reported in the early

1970s. In situ treatment protocols appeared in the literature shortly afterwards, typically

in the treatment of hydrocarbon-contaminated groundwater by the injection of air and

nutrients or the application of lime and fertilizer to treat to surface contamination with

oil derivatives. However, subsequent events, particularly the decline of heavy industry and

the end of the cold war, led to large areas of land on which industrial or military activity

was conducted becoming available for redevelopment. In these areas, the anthropogenic

pollution had occurred over decades and involved an array of both organic and non-

organic contaminants. In order to effectively treat these large areas of land in which the

extent and type of pollution was often poorly deﬁned and heterogeneous, a range of

new techniques were developed that relied on multidisciplinary approaches to deﬁne the

problem, treat the pollutants, and effectively monitor the consequences of these activities.

Devising a bioremediation strategy requires an understanding of the interaction of the

particular pollutant, or mixture, with the environment into which it is released, both in the

short and long term. Often this is dependent on the mobility or solubility of the particular

compound, its response to the physicochemical conditions in which it ﬁnds itself, and

the interaction between it and the biological activity found within the environment being

remediated. Many studies have observed that there are temporal changes affecting the

fate of toxic compounds within the environment. In some cases, these can be exploited

as part of the remediation process, while in others they result in long-term issues with

the persistence of compounds. Therefore, in tandem with monitoring and managing the

biological aspects of bioremediation, there is a requirement to characterize the fate of the

compounds of interest in the environment to inform the choice of the bioremediation

strategy to employ.

The application of molecular techniques into bioremediation protocols to add value

to the process will require a number of current issues to be resolved. In practical terms,

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