Enzymatic Treatment of Petroleum-Based Hydrocarbons

Abstract

Petroleum and petroleum-based products are highly beneficial for our daily life system. Functioning of several industries and machineries directly depends on different forms of petroleum. There are strong possibilities of the release of such petroleum and petroleum-based compounds like aliphatic as well as aromatic hydrocarbons during their refining process, usage, storage, transport, and other activities due to the accidents, leakages, or just a little lack of awareness. Their exposure to soils or water causes serious problems for aquatic as well as human beings. The efficient removal or detoxification of such pollutants is the demand of the present time. The use of microbial sources for the bioremediation of such petroleum wastes may be promising technique because it does not require any drastic conditions for detoxification process and by-products produced by them are also harmless unlike chemical and other techniques. In this regard, this chapter discusses the enzymatic role in detoxification or bioremediation of petroleum-based hydrocarbons.