Abstract
Hydrocarbon contamination from neurotoxic and carcinogenic pollutants is a major environmental problem. One of the best and most cost-effective technologies to clean up these pollutants is bioremediation. Bioremediation is a treatment that breaks down these hazardous chemicals into less toxic or nontoxic substances. In bioremediation, various types of microorganisms are used to decompose petroleum compounds into carbon dioxide, water, and inorganic compounds and complex organic contaminants into simpler organic compounds. This chapter presents an updated overview of petroleum hydrocarbon degradation by microorganisms in different ecosystems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Change history
26 April 2019
Figure 14.1 of this chapter was inadvertently published with errors. The correct presentation is given here.
References
Alexander M (1995) How toxic are toxic chemicals in soil? Environ Sci Technol 29(11):2713–2717
Alexander M (2000) Aging, bioavailability, and overestimation of risk from environmental pollutants. Environ Sci Technol 34(20):4259–4265
Atlas RM (1984) Petroleum microbiology. Macmillion, New York
Balba MT, Al-Awadhi N, Al-Daher R (1998) Bioremediation of oil-contaminated soil: microbiological methods for feasibility assessment and field evaluation. J Microbiol Methods 32(2):155–164 ISSN 0167-7012
Bell GH (1973) Solubilities of normal, aliphatic acids, alcohols and alkanes in water. Chem Phys Lipids 10:1–10
Boll M, Fuchs G, Heider J (2002) Anaerobic oxidation of aromatic compounds and hydrocarbons. Curr Opin Chem Biol 6:604–611
Brassington KJ, Hough RL, Paton GI, Semple KT, Risdon GC, Crossley J, Hay I, Askari K, Pollard SJT (2007) Weathered hydrocarbon wastes: a risk management primer. Crit Rev Environ Sci Technol 37(3):199–232
Cooney JJ, Silver SA, Beck EA (1985) Factors influencing hydrocarbon degradation in three freshwater lakes. Microbiol Ecol 11:127–137
Dibble JT, Bartha R (1979) Effect of environmental parameters on the biodegradation of oil sludge. Appl Environ Microbiol 37:729–739
Fuchs G (2008) Anaerobic metabolism of aromatic compounds. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1125:82–99
Fuchs G, Boll M, Heider J (2011) Microbial degradation of aromatic compounds – from one strategy to four. Nat Rev Microbiol 9:803–816
Head IM, Larter SR, Gray ND, Sherry A, Adams JJ (2010) Hydrocarbon degradation in petroleum reservoirs. In: Timmis KN, McGenity T, van der Meer JR, de Lorenzo V (eds) Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 3097–3109
Ivančev-Tumbas I, Tričković J, Karlović E, Tamaš Z, Rončević S, Dalmacija B, Petrović O, Klašnja M (2004) GC/MS-SCAN to follow the fate of crude oil components in bioreactors set to remediate contaminated soil. Int Biodeterior Biodegrad 54(4):311–318
Jorgensen KS, Puustinen J, Suortti AM (2000) Bioremediation of petroleumhydrocarbon-contaminated soil by composting in biopiles. Environ Pollut 107(2):245–254
Maletić S (2010) Characterisation of the biodegradability of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil and the bioremediation processes during treatment by biopiles and landfarming, PhD thesis, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Novi Sad (Serbia)
Pieper DH (2005) Aerobic degradation of polychlorinated biphenyls. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 67:170–191
Rojo F (2010) Enzymes for aerobic degradation of alkanes. In: Timmis K (ed) Handbook of hydrocarbon and lipid microbiology. Springer, Berlin, pp 781–797R
Rončević S (2007) Characterisation of the bioremediation processes in soil and groundwater contaminated by oil and oil derivatives at the site of Ratno Ostrvo, PhD thesis
Vidali M (2001) Bioremediation. An overview. Pure Appl Chem 73(7):1163–1172
Ward DM, Brock TD (1976) Environmental factors influencing the rate of hydrocarbon oxidation in temperate lakes. Appl Environ Microbiol 31:764–772
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kaur, A. (2018). Microbial Degradation of Hydrocarbons in the Ecosystem. In: Kumar, V., Kumar, M., Prasad, R. (eds) Microbial Action on Hydrocarbons. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1840-5_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1840-5_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1839-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-1840-5
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)