Recent Advances in Biological Remediation of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Heavy Metals

Inexpert waste management of a nation could impact their entire population's health and quality of living. At present, concerns have been raised in waste disposal and recycling due to tons of dumped waste on terrestrial land and its associated health hazards. For instance, recent global meetings of the United Nations Organization (UNO) and most countries frequently highlight the consequences of global warming and GHG emission effects. Among all pollutants, Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released through the combustion of domestic and industrial wastes shed an unpleasant odor, heavy metal intrusion on groundwater to the soil. Overall such pollutants impact global warming, and the wellbeing of exposed life forms visibly evidenced over decades. Available conventional VOCs removal methods are highly limited because of operation cost, hazardous by-product generation while implementing catalyst based treatment. In contrast, biological processes include a range of diverse filter and trickling approaches to degrade VOCs. Further, VOCs' pre-treatment methods and heavy metal processing of the related effluent from various sectors and the pre-treatment conditions before release into water and land environments will also be addressed.