Hydrocarbons: Bioremediation Report

Hydrocarbons are widely distributed in environment owing to its extensive use as pesticides, petroleum products or other organic compounds. Hydrocarbons being mutagenic and carcinogenic in nature, it has led to various serious threat to living form. Pollution can ensue due to accidental spillage or leakages while handling and transportation of such compounds. Thus it becomes necessary to ensure safe removal and disposal of pollutants, to avoid further dispersal in different environmental layers. Bioremediation is one such effective treatment methods which renders the pollutants harmless. Thus studying hydrocarbon utilizing bacteria becomes an essential step to formulate an effective bioremediation process. Hydrocarbon utilizing bacteria were

Their ability to transform and degrading many types of pollutants have been widely recognized. (Ilyina A. and J. 2003). Several microorganisms may be involved in the reactions of biogeochemical cycles and in some cases they are the only living forms that are capable of degrading the complex elements of nature and regenerating a form that can be consumed by other organisms (Peixoto R.S., 2011). Hydrocarbons are organic compounds that lack functional groups and thus makes it apolar. They are chemically less reactive at room temperature (Oliveira I.N.,2013) and insoluble in water. In this study petroleum derivatives are taken into consideration as hydrocarbon source. Various community play vital role in degradation of hydrocarbon. Petroleum is a heterogeneous mixture of hydrocarbons including aliphatic, alicyclic and aromatic in varying concentration depending upon the origin and nature. Henceforth, hydrocarbons term is used in general for the ease of discussion here. Hydrocarbons differ in their susceptibility to the microbial degradation, and is in general ranked as

(Chandran N.D.,2010). Thus incorporation of hydrocarbons in natural environment is not desirable, makes its treatment and proper disposal inevitable. Various important processes influence the fate of hydrocarbons in nature, like sorption, volatilisation, abiotic transformation (chemical or photochemical), and bioransformation. Since microorganisms play an important role in biogeochemical cycles, the biotransformation is of major concern. The other methods mentioned either just fixes or transports the contaminants or are not very effective in nature (Peixoto R.S., 2011). Biotransformation is a natural process, which can be used to solve environmental issues, the process then known as Bioremediation. Bioremediation and Organisms degrading Hydrocarbons :Bioremediation can be defined as the use of living organisms to detoxify or remove pollutants owing to their diverse metabolic capabilities. The process is considered as non-invasive and cost effective which makes it favourable to practice. (Chandran N.D.,2010)Bioremediation is carried out by a living forms. Among others, microorganisms are also involved in biologically degrading complex matter into simpler fragments, which renders it harmless and also makes it available to other organisms for their consumption. Bioremediation is achieved by existing