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Microbial cell immobilization: a renaissance to bioaugmentation inadequacies. A review

ABSTRACT Soil pollution by petroleum hydrocarbons no doubt has become an issue of contemporary concern. Different remediation technologies have been used to tackle these hydrocarbon spillage problems each regrettably with its own shortcomings. Hydrocarbon removal by bioremediation has become the most suitable alternative spill clean-up strategy. Biostimulation, natural attenuation and bioaugmentation are three practical approaches most frequently used to respond to oil spillage cases. Bioaugmentation technology has significantly recorded numerous successes and has also been proven most reliable and most effective. Bioaugmentation though as efficient and most reliable as stated is however not without its own limitations including the problem of initial adaptation of the introduced microbial species in the soil microcosms, temperature, pH and other abiotic factors. Other factors such as predation and competition between the autochthonous and allochthonous microbial communities thus resulting in poor remediation output also abound. Interestingly, the process of cell immobilization has been used to avert these bioaugmentation inadequacies. Several reports of success story by researchers with cell immobilization–bioaugmentation have been recorded in recent years. Herein, we discussed various immobilization techniques that have been employed towards successful bioaugmentation technology while we also critically analyzed and nominated the most reliable techniques for application in hydrocarbon spill events.