ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a general overview of the thesis, including background, problem description, research objectives and thesis structure. It provides the literature review about the impact of seleniferous soil on the environment and an overview of the current technologies undertaken for bioremediation of seleniferous soils. The book describes isolation and characterization of a novel aerobic bacterium, Delftia lacustris, capable of selenate and selenite reduction to elemental selenium and soluble selenium ester compounds. It explores a novel mechanism for selenate reduction coupled to methane oxidation by anaerobic marine sediment in batch enrichments and in a biotrickling filter. The book combines in situ and ex situ methods for soil remediation, where the seleniferous soil was treated in an in situ microcosm experiment, while the soil leachate optimally produced from experiments in chapter was treated ex situ in a upflow anaerobic sludge blanket bioreactor.
