Biodegradation of Petroleum Hydrocarbons

This book attempts to provide the reader with basic insights about microbial remediation of petroleum-contaminated sites based on culture-dependent techniques. Considering global industrialization, greater consumption of fossil fuels has a greater impact on the environment. Environmental contamination with xenobiotics threatens the environmental living spectrum. The demerits of conventional methods in remediating contaminated sites necessitate the shifting of focus to bioremediation. Microbial remediation of such contaminated areas preliminarily includes bio-prospecting and screening the novel organisms. An attempt has been made to highlight the basic fundamentals of the process, the basic methodological techniques involved in carrying out relevant experiments, and some recent advances that have been recorded in the area. It is hoped that this book will be of great help to students of Environmental Microbiology, Petroleum Microbiology, Environmental Toxicology, Biodegradation and Bioremediation, towards having a firm grasp of introductory aspects of biodegradation and bioremediation experiments.