ABSTRACT
Since the Industrial Revolution, enormous quantities of industrial chemicals have been released into the environment. These xenobiotics belong to various classes of organic compounds and comprise aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, carbonyl, chlorinated compounds, different malodorous substances, etc. While some of these chemicals are readily biodegraded, many of them are quite persistent in the environment. The observed accumulation of hazardous recalcitrant compounds emphasizes that the natural diversity of microbes is not adequate to protect the environment from pollution. Selection and/or development of stable bacterial strains and consortia able to mineralize toxic organic pollutants under a variety of environmental conditions and proper application of these organisms in specialized hardware to produce effective and economic biodegradation purification processes is a high priority in the environment protection area.
