Review on Bioremediation of Carbofuran & Different Factors Influencing the Process

Carbofuran is a carbamate pesticide, which is used widely in agriculture production. We can consider carbofuran as one of the most toxic carbamate pesticides. Usually we can encounter this pesticide in market as FURADAN (FMC corporation), CURATERR 10 GR (Bayer). The degradation of carbofuran is very important as it is toxic to environment which ultimately affects the living organisms. It is extremely lethal because of its anticholinesterase activity, which inhibits acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterse activity. Apart from carbofuran other carbamates such as Carbaryl, Aldicarb, Methomyl, Carbofuran, and Propoxur etc are also needs to be degraded. Several conventional technologies are used for the removal of carbofuran includingphysicochemical processing like photo-catalysis, ozonation/UV- irradiation, membrane filtration, adsorption and Fenton degradation. However, none of these technologies is feasible and cost effective for complete mineralization of carbofuran pollution from the environment. In such case, microbial degradation found to be the most effective, feasible and eco-friendly method. The degradation process also relies on various other ecological factors such as hydrolysis, oxidation etc along with naturally occurring microbes. This review point outs various microbes that can be helpful in degradation of carbamates, their metabolism and other ecological factors involved in this process.