Microbes and wastewater treatment

Microbes have been proven to be useful in many industrial, medicinal, pharmaceutical, and food technology sectors. The alarming slopes of water pollution are becoming a major threat to the global environment and our planet as we can see the tremendous effects on the ecosystem. During the span of past few decades, mankind has tried to imply all possible ways in order to keep up the balance, but we need some more efficient and eco-friendly methodologies. A variety of microbes can be used as workhorses for wastewater treatment. Wastewater, which is often termed as sewage, contains tons of organic matter. These microbes perform a vital role in the breakdown and removal of nutrients and organic matter in the wastewater and convert them into the substances that are environmentally beneficial. They feed on the nutrients present in the sewage such as nitrogen, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, iron, calcium, and complexes, for example, fats, sugars, and proteins. In this chapter, we are going to focus on the major microbial species involved in wastewater treatment, their identification, 16S rRNA-based classification, recombinant DNA technology to increase their bio-efficacy, and nontoxic activity, different databases for a broad spectrum analysis of the particular strains that are responsible for releasing pollutants along with their counterparts. The basic idea lies in providing the clear-cut knowledge and future perspectives using the collated information.