Biodesulfurization of organic sulfur compounds in fossil fuels

Combustion of sulfur components of fossil fuels such as oil causes the emission of SO2 in the atmosphere. Sulfur components are one of the important factors in pollution of the atmosphere due due to the formation of acidic rain in the environment. Conventional approach for desulfurization of oil is chemical procedure of hydro desulfurization (HDS). However, this procedure has low efficiency for desulfurization of ring components of sulfur such as dibenzothiophene (DBT). Thus the new methods such as biodesulfurization were proposed for desulfurization of ring components of sulfur. Biodesulfurization is a non-destructive method that it can remove sulfur from of hydrocarbons of petroleum in the mild conditions and it can be potentially used as complementary method with HDS. For industrial application of biodesulfurization, this approach need to isolation of new desulfurization bacteria and increasing desulfurization activity of them by genetic engineering methods. In this review, we are evaluated biodesulfurization method and advances of it in the two last decades.