Bioremediation- A biotechnological tool for environmental sustainability

3^rd International Conference on Hydrology & Meteorology

September 15-16, 2014 Hyderabad International Convention Centre, India

Garima Kaushik

Accepted Abstracts: Hydrol Current Res

Abstract :

The environment is the most important constituent necessary for the coexistence of man and other biotic units. The degree of environmental sustainability reflects the basic status of its biotic and abiotic components. The best method of sustaining the environment is to return back all the components (wastes and by products) in a recyclable way so that the waste becomes useful and helps the biotic and abiotic relationship to maintain an aesthetic and healthy equilibrium that characterizes an ideal environment. One such tool is Biotechnological tool, that use the chemistry of living organisms through cell manipulation to develop new and alternative methods aimed at cleaner and more effective ways of producing traditional products and at the same time maintain the natural and aesthetic beauty of the environment. Today, biotechnology is being considered as an emerging science for environmental protection. The physico-chemical methods of pollutant treatment include high costs and the need to re-treat the products, which further increases the cost of treatment as these processes only change the state of pollutants rather than completely eradicating them. On the other hand biological methods involve degradation of pollutants, solving the problem permanently. In the biological treatment method, pollutants in wastewater can be resolved, detoxified, and separated by using mainly microorganisms. Due to the relatively low cost and the variations of work progress, bioremediation process has been most widely used all over the world. Bioremediation technology uses micro-organisms to reduce, eliminate or transform contaminants present in soils, sediments or water. In many cases these microorganisms or their products are integrated into the substrates which are used in many processes like, bioleaching (biomining), biodetergent, biofiltrations, biocatalysts, biomass fuel production, biomonitoring, and so forth. These are biotools (biotechnological tools), which could solve the problem of pollution and help sustain the environment.