Microbial Bioremediation & Biodegradation

Microbial or biological degradation has long been the subject of active concern, and the rapid expansion and growing sophistication of various industries in the last century has significantly increased the volume and complexity of toxic residues of wastes. These can be remediated by plants and microbes, either natural origin or adapted for a specific purpose, in a process known as bioremediation. The interest in microbial biodegradation of pollutants has intensified in recent years in an attempt to find sustainable ways to clean contaminated environments. These bioremediation and biotransformation methods take advantage of the tremendous microbial catabolic diversity to degrade, transform or accumulate a variety of compounds, such as hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, polaromatic hydrocarbons pharmaceutical substances, radionuclides and metals. Unlike conventional methods, bioremediation does not physically disturb the site. This book describes the basic principles of biodegradation and shows how these principles are related to bioremediation. Authored by leading, international environmental microbiologists, it discusses topics such as aerobic biodegradation, microbial degradation of pollutants, and microbial community dynamics. It provides valuable insights into how biodegration processes work and can be utilised for pollution abatement, and as such appeals to researchers and postgraduate students as well as experts in the field of bioremediation.

Maulin P. Shah (Mr.), currently Chief Scientist & Head - Industrial Waste Water Research Lab, Division of Applied and Environmental Microbiology Lab at Enviro Technology Ltd., Ankleshwar, Gujarat, India, received his Ph.D. (2002-2005) in Environmental Microbiology from Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat. He has served as an Assistant Professor at Godhra, Gujarat University in 2001. He is a Microbial Biotechnologist with diverse research interest. A group of research scholars is working under his guidance on the areas ranging from Applied Microbiology, Environmental Biotechnology, Bioremediation, and Industrial Liquid Waste Management to solid state fermentation. His primary interest is the environment, the quality of our living resources and the ways that bacteria can help to manage and degrade toxic wastes and restore environmental health. Consequently, He is very interested in genetic adaptation processes in bacteria, the mechanisms by which they deal with toxic substances, how they react to pollution in general and how we can apply microbial processes in a useful way (like bacterial bio reporters). One of our major interests is to study how bacteria evolve and adapt to use organic pollutants as novel growth substrates. Bacteria with new degradation capabilities are often selected in polluted environments and have accumulated small (mutations) and large genetic changes (transpositions, recombination, and horizontally transferred elements). His work has been focused to assess the impact of industrial pollution on microbial diversity of wastewater following cultivation dependent and cultivation independent analysis. His major work involves isolation, screening, identification and Genetic Engineering of high impact of Microbes for the degradation of hazardous materials. He has more than 200 research publication in highly reputed national and international journals. He directs the Research program at Enviro Technology Ltd., Ankleshwar. He has guided more than 100 Post Graduate students in various disciplines of Life Science. He is an active Editorial Board Member in more than 150 highly reputed Journal's in the field of Environmental & Biological Sciences. He was Founder Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Environmental Bioremediation and Biodegradation (2012-2014) as well as Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2012-2014) (Science and Education Publishing, USA).  He is also serving as a reviewer in various journals of national and international repute. Recently, he has been awarded as a Young Biotechnologist Medal by Biotechnological Society of Nepal'. He was Associate Editor in Microbiome (Bio Med Cent), BMC Microbiology (Springer Nature), Currently he is an Advisory Board in CLEAN-Soil, Air, Water (Wiley), Editor in Current Pollution Reports (Springer Nature), Editor in Bulletin of Environmental Contamination & Toxicology (Springer Nature), Editor in Environmental Technology & Innovation-ELSEVIER, Editor in Current Microbiology-Springer Nature, Editor in Journal of Biotechnology & Biotechnological Equipment-Taylor & Francis, Editor in Ecotoxicology (Microbial Ecotoxicology)- Springer Nature, Associate Editor in Geo Microbiology (Springer Nature). He is editor-in-Chief in three reputed journals. He has edited 15 books in the area of Waste Water Microbiology.