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Abstract Global industrialization has largely expanded the edges of petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) exploration. A large amount of various hydrocarbons are introduced into the environment during the stages of oil extraction, refinement, storage, transportation and disposal. Benzene is the parent hydrocarbon among the aromatic organic compounds which naturally occurs in petroleum products. It is a well-known carcinogenic organic compound. Its contamination is a widespread problem in soil as well as groundwater due to lack of oxygen in subsurface soils. Various physical and chemical methods are known to clean up aromatic hydrocarbons but they are too expensive and lead to adverse effects. Bioremediation technology has gained a great attention for the cleanup of hazardous aromatic compounds. There are advantages to rely on indigenous microorganisms rather than adding microbes to degrade waste. Emerging technologies have been developed in the field of environmental biotechnology for enhance degradation and complete removal of organic contaminant. This chapter reviews on recent progress in anaerobic degradation of benzene along with its sources, environmental fate and anaerobic mineralization pathways in the presence of different electron acceptors and also focuses on enhanced benzene degradation by enrichment and immobilization-based culture technique, factors affecting the rate of anaerobic degradation, role of enzymes and molecular tools to assess bioremediation. Keywords Aromatic hydrocarbon Biodegradation Electron acceptors





Benzene

Molecular tools

Anaerobic

condition




B. Pathak (&)
S. Gupta
M.H. Fulekar School of Environment and Sustainable Development, Central University of Gujarat, Sector-30, Gandhinagar, Gujarat 382030, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017 K. Heimann et al. (eds.), Biodegradation and Bioconversion of Hydrocarbons, Environmental Footprints and Eco-design of Products and Processes, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0201-4_5

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1 Introduction The wide consumption and demand of petroleum based products like fuel oil and gasoline has led to expansion of the petrochemical industry. The petrochemical industry produces approximately 70 million tons of aromatics including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene (BTEX). A petrochemical industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, and transportation of the raw material which give rise to great variety of pollutants into the environment. Among the organic pollutants, aromatic organic compounds are a major pollution problem in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem. The transportation sector uses a significant amount of petrochemicals and gasoline. Commercial gasoline is comprised of almost 30 % (wt/wt) benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) (Seagren and Becker 2002; Villatoro-Monzón et al. 2008). The mandatory decrease of lead alkyls in gasoline in 2004, has led to an increase in aromatic hydrocarbon content of gasoline to maintain high octane le