Green and Sustainable Remediation: Advances in Microbial Technologies for Legacy and Emerging Contaminants

Legacy contaminants (e.g., heavy metals, organic pollutants, etc.) and emerging contaminants (e.g., microplastics, antibiotics, endocrine disruptors, etc.) are ubiquitous in the environment, threatening human health and ecosystems. To prevent secondary pollution and resource waste while ensuring the reuse of treated soil and water, green and sustainable remediation strategies are urgently needed. Green remediation strategies prioritize minimizing environmental footprints while maximizing resource recovery. Bioremediation plays a vital role in achieving these sustainability goals. However, functional microbial strains screened in the laboratory exhibit limited adaptability in actual environments. Besides, functional microorganisms that can effectively degrade emerging pollutants are still scarce. These limit the advancement of microbial remediation technology.

This Research Topic aims to discover novel and efficient functional microorganisms, especially for emerging pollutants; clarify the underlying mechanism of screened functional microorganisms on legacy/emerging pollutants; apply high-efficiency microbes in complex environmental matrices and evaluate their long-term ecological impacts. By achieving these objectives, we aim to advance the application of microbial technology in environmental remediation, ensuring sustainable outcomes.

This Research Topic invites original research and review articles correlated with the discovery of novel efficient functional microbes, the elucidation of their underlying mechanisms, the applications of these microorganisms in actual environmental matrices, and the systematic evaluation of their long-term ecological impacts. We welcome laboratory, greenhouse, and field studies including, but not limited to, the following research topics:
• Screening and identifying novel and efficient microbial strains for contaminants
• Combining microbes with chemical agents for enhanced remediation
• Elucidating the mechanisms of microbial-mediated pollutant transformation
• Investigating the carbon and nitrogen cycle mechanisms mediated by microbes
• Exploring interactions between functional microbes and indigenous microflora
• Assessing the ecological impacts of functional microbes in actual environment