Biological Treatments for Petroleum Hydrocarbon Pollutions: The Eco-Friendly Technologies

Anthropogenic activities introduce petroleum hydrocarbons into the environments, and the remediation of the polluted environments using conventional physicochemical, thermal, and electromagnetic technologies is a challenging task, laborious work, and expensive. The ecotoxicological effects and human health hazards posed by petroleum hydrocarbon pollutions gave rise to the call for “green technologies” to remove petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants from polluted environments. It is imperative to transition from the conventional physicochemical treatments methods that are expensive to more eco-friendly biological treatment technologies that reduce energy consumption, chemicals usage, cost of implementation and enables more sustainable risk-based approaches towards environmental reclamation. The chapter summarises and gives an overview of the various biological treatment technologies adapted to the remediation of hazardous petroleum hydrocarbon polluted sites. Biological treatment technologies include; bioremediation, biostimulation, bioaugmentation, bioattenuation, bioventing, biosparging, bioslurry, biopiling, biotransformation, landfarming, composting, windrow, vermiremediation, phytoremediation, mycoremediation, phycoremediation, electrobioremediation, nanoremediation, and trichoremediation. They are green technology approaches widely adopted, scientifically defensible, sustainable, non-invasive, ecofriendly, and cost-efficient in the remediation of petroleum hydrocarbons polluted environments compared to the physicochemical, thermal, and electromagnetic treatments technologies, which are rather destructive and expensive. The chapter provides detailed illustrations representing the various biological treatment technologies for a comprehensive understanding and successful implementation with their subsequent benefits and constraints.