How is Bioremediation Useful?
Bioremediation can be used to clean up a wide variety of different pollutants in various environments. There are two main ways in which bioremediation can be used; it can be applied ex-situ, which requires that the toxins first be removed from the environment, and then treated. The alternative is in-situ bioremediation, which is more popular because all of the materials remain and are degraded on site, without having to be transported. Normally, bioremediation is used when the contaminants are organic in nature, as those substances tend to be more susceptible to metabolization and other biological processes, but there are applications of it for non-organic pollutants as well. Microbial bioremediation can used to clean up chemical spills, and oil spills especially, both on water and on land, as well as for the filtration of contaminated ground water and soil. Phytoremediation in particular can often be applied to sites where there are heavy metals and other non-organic toxins present in the ground.
This video discusses the application of bioremediation to clean up an oil spill:
The following are links to websites that explain the applications of bioremediation in more depth:
http://www.epa.gov/oust/cat/insitbio.htm
http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~tge/ce421-521/thehawkenator.pdf
http://ergobalance.blogspot.ca/2013/11/applications-of-bioremediation-and.html
http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/BioremediationBook.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/oem/docs/oil/fss/fss04/zenone_04.pdf
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://www.researchgate.net/publication/12164603_Metal-binding_proteins_and_peptides_in_bioremediation_and_phytoremediation_of_heavy_metals/file/72e7e51c5888df2de2.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2-ENOrGaP44fYik4Du-jvN08Z5JA&oi=scholarr&ei=-FIuU_SVFYW1qQHAzIGABQ&ved=0CCoQgAMoAjAA
http://www.epa.gov/oust/cat/insitbio.htm
http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~tge/ce421-521/thehawkenator.pdf
http://ergobalance.blogspot.ca/2013/11/applications-of-bioremediation-and.html
http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/BioremediationBook.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/oem/docs/oil/fss/fss04/zenone_04.pdf
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://www.researchgate.net/publication/12164603_Metal-binding_proteins_and_peptides_in_bioremediation_and_phytoremediation_of_heavy_metals/file/72e7e51c5888df2de2.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2-ENOrGaP44fYik4Du-jvN08Z5JA&oi=scholarr&ei=-FIuU_SVFYW1qQHAzIGABQ&ved=0CCoQgAMoAjAA