3 Review(s)

Environmental biotechnology offers unique, efficient, eco-friendly and economically viable options for treatment of wastes in situ and conversion of hazardous toxic waste into relatively less harmful or harmless products. It involves applications of biotechnology to the management of environment and related socio-economic and development issues. The third volume of Handbook of Environmental Biotechnology deals with topics such as environmental biotechnology in chemical processing and allied industries, soil and landfill, novel methods of environmental biotechnical pollution control like vermiculture biotechnology and composting. This volume is divided into three sections. Section I deals with environmental biotechnology in chemical processing and allied industries. The key aspects of early detection of hazards, assessment of consequences of accidental release of effluents and evaluation of biotechnology at various stages of implementation have been taken up. Section II concentrates on transformation and enhancement of resource base, reduction of energy consumption, pollution abetment, enhancement of biomass production and conservation of non-renewable resources, generation of useful organic chemicals from bioconversion of biomass, etc. Section III discusses the novel methods of environmental biological pollution control such as the role of earthworms in improving soil fertility, and of plants in absorbing gaseous pollutants and aquatic weeds in absorbing pollutants.