SEMINAR: Soil and Water Seminar, Weds Oct6:

Dr Naresh Radhakrishnan from ECU will give the following talk: "Sulphur oxidising bacteria and sulphate reducing bacteria for environmental clean-up". All Welcome!

ABSTRACT: Heavy metal contamination of soil and water has been occurring from several centuries. However, industrialization and urbanization have enormously increased its pace and extent during the last 50 years. Soil and water laden with heavy metals has no use and poses severe risk in the environment. Conventional physico-chemical treatment technologies for metal contaminated soil and water have some drawbacks making it necessary to investigate other viable treatments. Biological based treatments i.e., bioremediation offers feasible and attractive alternative to conventional treatments. Further, microbial based processes are gaining tremendous attention among researchers and environmental managers for soil and water decontamination. Among the bioremediation technologies available, bioleaching involving sulphur oxidising bacteria is being investigated for removal of heavy metals from soil and sulphate reducing bacteria based process is explored for treating acidic and metal contaminated water. Despite the effectiveness of bioremediation processes further research is required before they can be considered for full-fledged field application. This presentation includes an overview of bioleaching and sulphate reduction processes for environmental clean-up and factors controlling the treatment efficiency.