What is Bioremediation?
Bioremediation involves the use of biotechnology in order to remove or reduce the concentration of man-made pollutants in the environment. Microorganisms, and sometimes plants or fungi, are used to trap or break down the contaminants into simpler, less harmful substances such as carbon and water. There are two main types of microbial bioremediation: biostimulation and bioaugmentation. For biostimulation, substances such as oxygen and nutrients are added to the site in order to improve the ability of microbes that are already present to break down the pollutants. In cases where such microbes are not present, bioaugmentation must be used, which involves the introduction of microbes that do not occur naturally in that particular location. Sometimes, these microorganisms will be genetically engineered for the specific purpose of metabolizing the contaminant. In the various types of phytoremediation, plants or algae are used to absorb the contaminants from the environment, metabolize them, or reduce their mobility in order to mitigate their impact on the surrounding ecosystem. Microremediation uses fungi to achieve the same goals as phytoremediation.
The following are links to various websites which describe and explain bioremediation in more detail:
http://ei.cornell.edu/biodeg/bioremed/
http://www.geoengineer.org/education/web-based-class-projects/geoenvironmental-remediation-technologies/bioremediation?showall=&
http://clu-in.org/techfocus/default.focus/sec/Bioremediation/cat/Overview/
http://ajpls.com/admin/issues/issue131.pdf
http://ei.cornell.edu/biodeg/bioremed/
http://www.geoengineer.org/education/web-based-class-projects/geoenvironmental-remediation-technologies/bioremediation?showall=&
http://clu-in.org/techfocus/default.focus/sec/Bioremediation/cat/Overview/
http://ajpls.com/admin/issues/issue131.pdf
Here is a short video which briefly explains bioremediation: