Hydroponics and Environmental Bioremediation

Bioremediation is the use of biological interventions for mitigation of the noxious effects caused by pollutants in the environment including wastewater. It is very useful approach for a variety of applications in the area of environmental protection. It has become an attractive alternative to the conventional clean-up technologies that employ plants and their associated microorganisms to remove, contain, or render harmless environmental contaminants.

Hydroponic systems, which utilize plants which are grown in a nutrient solution without soil, are expanding and raising great interest in the commercial and scientific community. They are engineered systems designed and constructed to utilize the natural processes involving macrophytes, media, and the associated microbial assemblages to assist in treating wastewaters. This is a relatively new approach in wastewater treatment by which a variety of emergent macrophytes are grown hydroponically on top of floating platforms with their roots developing freely into the flowing wastewater. The roots provide a support medium for attached microbial growth which participates in the treatment process.

Dr. Nitish Kumar is Senior Assistant Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, Central University of South Bihar, Gaya, Bihar, India. Dr. Kumar completed his doctoral research at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research-Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India. He has published more than 70 research articles in leading international and national journals, more than 20 book chapters and 7 books with Springer and Taylor & Francis. He has a wide area of research experience in the field of agriculture and crop improvement. Dr. Kumar is a recipient of the Young Scientist Award from the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) in 2014 He has received many awards/fellowships/projects from various prestigious government organizations like CSIR, DBT, ICAR and SERB-DST, BRNS-BARC, among others. He is a reviewer for various International Journals and serves as an associate editor of the journal Gene (Elsevier).