Surface-active compounds of microbial origin and their potential application in technologies of environmental remediation

Abstract

The world is now confronted with serious problems of environmental contamination. Industrial and mining activities represent the main sources of heavy metal contamination, which provide unique challenges for their remediation, as they cannot be degraded into innocuous products. On the other hand, extensive production and use of hydrocarbons and pesticides in diverse fields has resulted in widespread environmental contamination by these chemicals. A variety of remediation technologies that include physicochemical methods, are available to address contamination with organic and inorganic pollutants. However, these technologies have high cost and the risk of secondary environmental pollution. The microbial remediation includes the use of certain microorganisms or products derived to them to address the problems of environmental pollution. In this connection, the synthesis and release of exopolymers with surfactants activity is one of the strategies of the first microbial cell defence line against diverse toxics. These compounds can be successfully used to release hydrocarbons and other pollutants of low solubility from soils matrix. There are also reports regarding the release of heavy metals from soils and sediments using compounds of biological origin as surfactants microbial. This chapter considers the current advances on this topic, emphasizing on the properties and potential applications of microbial surfactants in environmental remediation technologies.