Foreword
Increasing human population and developing civilizational goals in terms of quality
of living and subsequent energy needs have led to extreme pressures on the finite
resources that the earth has to offer. Especially the conventional energy derived
through petroleum resources and coal reserves is rapidly declining, leading to
concerns as well as global interest in developing alternative sources of energy. At
the same time, environmental health is also declining due to several anthropogenic
activities. It is therefore important to develop tools and technologies to measure and
monitor the quality of the environment in order to find approaches for remediating
the contaminated environments as well getting useful products out of this process in
the current vogue approach of resource recovery. In the current environmentally and
sustainably conscious times, the concept of waste has been replaced with resource.
Microbiology and biotechnology have traditionally found application in both
these aspects of bioenergy production, bioremediation and extracting useful
products from otherwise hitherto waste materials. Governments and industries all
over the world are considering the potential of microorganisms and biotechnology to
develop biomass-based processes for the development of liquid and gaseous fuels, as
well as algal fuels, biogas upgrading, aviation biofuels, bioelectrochemical systems
all of which have been covered extensively in this book. Lignin depolymerization
aquatic microbial oxygenic phototrophs offer much promise and are discussed in
detail.
In addition to the role of microbial biotechnology in creating an alternative source
of energy, the book also takes a good look at the environmental health issues.
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