Toxicologia Ambiental e Analítica

Xenobiotic Compounds Present in Soil and Water: A Review on Remediation Strategies

Abstract

Jai Godheja, Shekhar SK, Sarfraj Ahmad Siddiqui and Modi DR

Synthetic chemicals foreign to a particular ecological system and has a biological activity can be called xenobiotic compounds. Xenobiotics include drugs, industrial chemicals, naturally occurring poisons and environmental pollutants. Some microorganisms have the ability of breaking down the xenobiotic compounds partially or entirely. But some xenobiotics are recalcitrant in nature because of various reasons. Some of them cannot be used as substrate by microbes, some cannot transport them due to absence of transporting enzymes and some are in accessible to microbes due to larger structure and insolubility. They can be divided into different groups depending on their chemical composition. Biological and non-biological remediation techniques are the most reliable techniques to degrade these compounds. Bacterial biodegradation used in land filling and composting are most economical methods which uses both the wild type and genetically modified bacterial strains. There are many non-biological techniques which have been grouped under thermal and non-thermal techniques which are suitable for xenobiotic degradation.