Abstract

Human activities in industry, transportation, agriculture and urbanization have been generating the release of emerging pollutants, in other words substances resistant especially in water bodies such as drugs, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, textile dyes, chloride compounds, nitro phenols and pesticides. For the treatment of systems reached by these emerging pollutants, the bioremediation process has been used worldwide, and consists in using microorganisms that degrade pollutants. This process can be potentiated using structured materials that immobilize the microorganisms by physical or chemical adsorption and transports them to the pollutant. This review highlights the characterization of the structured immobilized or free materials by Scanning Electron Microscopies (SEM) and Transmission (TEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and the influence of the pH on immobilization and bioremediation processes.

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