ABSTRACT
Urbanization besides industrialization headed to decline environmental quality including terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem. Oil refineries and petrochemical industries play significant role in country’s economic growth. But processing of crude chemical substances resulted into generation of toxic sludge waste effluent on land and soil surface which is inflexible to treatment process. Specifically, the focal classes of soil pollutants are oil grease, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), mono-aromatic hydrocarbon, phenol, and total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) compounds. These contaminants are mutagenic as well as carcinogenic in nature classified by US EPA and may cause adverse impact on biotic components of the ecosystem. Bioremediation is a developing technology and a holistic approach to treat persistent organic compounds by using living microorganisms, e.g., bacterial, fungal, yeast, and algal culture. Therefore, this chapter discusses the role of various fungal groups in treatment of complex hydrocarbons and other toxic compounds found in refinery effluent.
