Bioaugmentation as a strategy for cleaning up of soils contaminated with aromatic compounds

The contamination of soil with aromatic compounds is of particular environmental concern as they exhibit carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. One of the methods of their removal from soil is bioaugmentation, defined as a technique for improvement of the degradative capacity of contaminated areas by introduction of specific competent strains or consortia of microorganisms. The efficiency of bioaugmentation is determined by many abiotic and biotic factors discussed in this paper. The first include chemical structure, concentration and availability of pollutants as well as physico-chemical properties of soil. In turn, among biotic factors the most important is the selection of proper microorganisms that can not only degrade contaminants but can also successfully compete with indigenous microflora. Several strategies are being developed to make augmentation a successful technology particularly in soils without degrading indigenous microorganisms. These approaches involve the use of genetically engineered microorganisms and gene bioaugmentation. The enhancement of bioaugmentation may be also achieved by delivering suitable microorganisms immobilized on various carriers or use of activated soil.