Hydrocarbon Biodegradation Using Agro-Industrial Wastes as Co-Substrates

Abstract

The diversity of agro industrial wastes makes them an attractive group of organic wastes for potential use in a wide variety of industrial and biotechnological applications. The new stimulating development in this current area of research approaches in combination with the technologies of large-scale production and biotechnology engineering, agro industrial wastes will be economically successful materials of the future. Increased public awareness of issues related to hydrocarbon pollution strongly influences the development of technologies that speed up cleaning hazardous contaminants. The cost of biodegradation technology and the low bioavailability including mass transfer limitations of hydrocarbons, especially those recalcitrant components, from various mediums into the aqueous phase for effective enzyme-based microbial biodegradation still constitute major challenges. Sustainable replacement of traditional microbiological media with agroindustrial wastes as substrates for biosurfactant production holds great potential; thereby decrease numerous management problems of handling industrial waste. These organic nitrogen-rich nutrients (biostimulation) are an effective means to enhance the bioremediation process and widely available as wastes in the environment; hence, they can serve as “natural waste-to-environmental clean-up.” However, current chapter have focused on the combined use of biosurfactants and enzymes produced from renewable resources such as agro-industrial waste, through assisted biostimulation and bioaugmentation, for hydrocarbon biodegradation.