ABSTRACT
Environmental pollution by petrochemical contaminants is a main issue and challenge because unintentional discharge or spill have affected several ecosystems since they are less or poor biodegradable. Another major problem with petrochemical contaminants is that they are hydrophobic in nature, and hence they are less or poorly soluble in aqueous environments. Due to their higher interfacial tension, these pollutants are difficult to remove from the environment. The use of chemical or synthetic surfactants is a solution but it further leads to the production of another form of contaminants. Therefore, the application of surfactants having biological origin could be a better choice for removing these hydrophobic contaminants having petrohydrocarbon origin. Surfactants from the biological origin are commonly known as ‘biosurfactants’ or ‘biological surfactants,’ which are produced by a wide variety of microorganisms. The benefit of using biosurfactants is that they perform a similar function to synthetic surfactants and causes no harm to the environment. In the future, the use of biosurfactants from efficient microorganisms involving cost-effective technology will certainly change the scenario of biodegradation of petro-hydrocarbons in environments. Moreover, these biosurfactants consist of unique special structure, therefore, may have a different type of properties to exploit them commercially. In this chapter, we will discuss the production of biosurfactants and their mechanisms as well as their application in the process of bioremediation.
