It is the process that uses microorganisms, fungi, green plants or their enzymes
to return the natural environment altered by contaminants to its original condition.
Bioremediation may be employed to attack specific soil contaminants, such as degradation
of chlorinated hydrocarbons by bacteria. An example of a more general approach is
the cleanup of oil spills by the addition of nitrate and/or sulfate fertilisers
to facilitate the decomposition of crude oil by indigenous or exogenous bacteria.
The elimination of a wide range of pollutants and wastes from the environment requires
increasing our understanding of the relative importance of different pathways and
regulatory networks to carbon flux in particular environments and for particular
compounds and they will certainly accelerate the development of bioremediation technologies
and biotransformation processes
Generally, bioremediation technologies can be classified as in situ or ex situ.
In situ bioremediation involves treating the contaminated material at the site while
ex situ involves the removal of the contaminated material to be treated elsewhere.
Some examples of bioremediation technologies are bioventing, land farming, bioreactor,
composting, bioaugmentation and biostimulation.
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