Biotechnology for the Environment: Soil Remediation: (3B Focus on Biotechnology)

At the dawn of the 21st century, biotechnology is emerging as a key enabling technology for sustainable environmental protection and stewardship. Biotechnology for the Environment: Soil Remediation offers a state-of-the-art account of environmental biotechnology both in emerging and in more mature technological applications of soil remediation and cleanup of contaminated sites. Harnessing the potential of microorganisms and plants as eco-efficient and robust cleanup agents in a variety of practical situations is not only possible but is becoming widespread practice. Chapters are featured on current experience and trends in bioremediation of contaminated soil, life cycle assessment software tools for remediation planning, ex situ cleanup technologies using slurry reactors, implementation of anaerobic and aerobic in situ processes including monitored natural attenuation, complementary technologies on pesticide immobilisation in soil or humification of nitroaromatics, and, finally, phytoremediation of recalcitrant organic compounds and heavy metals. For more information on Strategy and Fundamentals, see Focus on Biotechnology Volume 3A, and for more information on Waste Water and Waste Gas Handling, see Focus on Biotechnology Volume 3C.

Table of Contents:
Editor's Preface. Part 1: Current Practice and Trends. Biological soil treatment; J. Klein. 1.Introduction. 2. Fundamentals. 3. Necessary preliminary investigations. 4. Bioremediation techniques. 5. Re-use of the soil. 6. Bioassays for soil. 7. Perspectives. References. Life cycle assessment in soil bioremediation planning; S. Volkwein. Part 2: Ex Situ Clean Up Technologies. The DMT-BIODYN-process; C. Sinder, et al. 1. Introduction. 2. Materials and methods. 3. Results. 4. Discussion. Acknowledgements. References. The slurry decontamination process; R.H. Kleijntjens, et al. 1. Introduction. 2. Classification of treatment technologies. 3. Bioreactors. 4. Configuration of ex situ bioprocesses. 5. Scale-up. 6. Conclusions. Acknowledgements. References. Part 3: In Situ Clean-Up Technologies. In situ biological soil remediation techniques; P. Middeldorp, et al. 1. Introduction. 2. Source zone remediation techniques. 3. Active plume management techniques. 4. Natural attenuation. 5. Discussion and outlook. References. Part 4: Immobilisation of pollutants in the soil. Immobilisation of pesticides in the soil through enzymatic reactions; J.-M. Bollag. 1. Introduction. 2. Reactions between Pesticides and Humic Material. 3. Enzymes and their origin. 4. NMR spectroscopy to determine the type of binding of pesticides in the soil. 5. Stability and release of bound pesticides. 6. Enzymes as decontaminating agents. 7. Conclusions. References. Humidification of nitroaromatics; D. Bruns-Nagel, et al. 1. Introduction. 2. Composting of soil contaminated with nitroaromatics. 3. Optimisation of composting of TNT-contaminated soil. 4. Transformation of TNT during anaerobic/aerobic composting. 5. 14C-TNT balancing in anaerobic/aerobic composting. 6. Qualitative description of non-extractable 15N-TNT residues formed by an anaerobic/aerobic composting. 7. Conclusion. References. Part 5: Phytoremediation. Phytoremediation; T. Macek, et al. 1. Introduction. 2. Examples of practical phytoremediation experiments. 3. Basic research aspects. 4. Genetic modifications. 5. Conclusions. Acknowledgement. References. Index.