Sustainable Bioremediation of Heavy Metals and Organic Pollutants from Soil

Dear Colleagues,

Soil contamination with inorganic and organic pollutants is a serious environmental concern worldwide and poses a serious threat to agricultural productivity, food security and human health. Biological remediation approaches using microbes, plants (i.e., phytoremediation) and microbe-plant interactions (i.e., rhizoremediation) have emerged as the most promising, sustainable, economical and ecofriendly in situ clean-up options for polluted environments. Owing to their tremendous diversity and potential, the use of biological organisms such as plants and microbes for the removal and detoxification of organic pollutants and heavy metals is increasingly getting public acceptance and researchers’ attention around the globe. Insights into the various mechanisms and strategies adopted by the plants and microbes in the remediation and detoxification of pollutants are of immense importance to the design, development and use the biological treatment options. Therefore, research studies ranging from lab-scale batch experiments to large field-level trials are needed to make bioremediation a feasible and sustainable treatment option. Further, successful synergistic impacts and outcomes can be achieved through incorporating bioremediation with promoting biodiversity, bioenergy and agricultural productivity, and mitigating climate change and soil erosion issues.

This Special Issue of Sustainability covers all the topics of interdisciplinary research studies that are considered essential in attaining sustainability in soil clean-up and management through any bioremediation strategies and options. This thematic issue aims to demonstrate the practices that are safe and potentially cost-effective in addressing the issues of soil pollution and overcoming the obstacles to bioremediation as a sustainable option for decontamination of polluted soil. The issue will be helpful in supplementing the existing literature by adding up-to-date knowledge and in-depth understanding of the potential and challenges associated with bioremediation of soil environment polluted with toxic heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants.

The thematic issue will focus on but is not limited to the following fields and topics:

• Sustainable soil remediation strategies and approaches
• Microbial systems for bioremediation of heavy metals
• Insights into detoxification of recalcitrant organic pollutants by microbes and their enzymes
• Plant mechanisms for the management of heavy metals in soil-water system
• Plant-assisted microbial biodegradation of persistent organic pollutants
• Microbe-assisted phytoremediation of organic and inorganic pollutants
• Screening and identification of pollutant-degrading microbes
• Bioremediation approaches to achieve complete detoxification
• Studies on plant-soil-microbe and biochar-soil-plant interactions, etc.
• Exploring and identifying new plant species having phytoremediation potential
• Integrated approaches for the bioremediation of recalcitrant toxic compounds

Dr. Muhammad Imran Khan
Dr. Nabeel Khan Niazi
Dr. Basharat Ali
Dr. Sardar Alam Cheema
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• soil pollution
• heavy metals
• persistent organic pollutants
• microbial degradation
• phytoremediation
• sustainable soil remediation