Remediation processes for petroleum oil polluted soil

Oil spill either marine or terrestrial is a real concern to human health and environmental safety. The adverse impacts on economy, environment, human health and society have been documented in case of both offshore and onshore oil spills. Oil spillage on soil greatly impacts surrounding environments, which highlights urgent need for effective removal of petroleum hydrocarbon pollutants from polluted soil. Existing conventional physico-chemical methods of crude oil polluted soil remediation suffer from severe constrains, such as, low efficiency, high operational cost and large amount of sludge generation. Over the last three decades, considerable work has been done with the goal of applying microorganisms as bioremediation agents to treat oil polluted soils. In recent years, the focus of the research has been on a combination of methods used for remediation of petroleum oil polluted soil. The present paper provides selective overview of past and present scenario of using various remediation processes for removal of petroleum hydrocarbon pollutants from crude oil polluted soil. Updated information on integration of various remediation methods, viz., physical-chemical, physical-biological and biologicalchemical is also discussed.