WRITING PORTFOLIO TASK 3
ESSAY
NAME: NG KAI XIAN
GROUP: 31
MATRIC No.: 203209
Biotechnology is the use of an organism, or a component of an organism or other
biological system, to make a product or process for a specific use. Besides that, the
biotechnology process often includes both cutting-edge laboratory techniques and
traditional agricultural techniques that have been practised for hundreds of years.
Nowadays, biotechnology has been well known for it’s potential to provide benefits to
people and societies especially in area such as environmental issues. The applications of
biotechnology in environmental issues include solving pollution issues and environmental
detection and monitoring.
Firstly, the application of biotechnology in environmental issues is to solve and
improve pollution issues as it can improve air quality. Bioreactors are important in treating
air pollutions biologically. Biofilters that are used during common operating state of
pressure and temperature are the most suitable method for biological treatment of gases
pollutants even though they are usually only productive in a low amount of natural
pollutants (Famideh et al., 2014). Other than treating pollutions biologically, biotechnology
is applicable in treating wastewater as well. Arora (2016) claims that the elimination of
pollutants from surface water and groundwater, such as metals from wet soil and ground
can be done by rhizofiltration through adsorption, condensation onto roots or immersion
of organs from metal-endurance aquatic flora. Therefore, one of the importance of
biotechnology in environmental issues is to solve and improve pollution issues.
Secondly, environmental detection and monitoring is another application of
biotechnology in environmental issues. Biotechnology can help to detect pollution and
used in continuous monitoring of pollutants. Biosensors and immunoassays have been
evolved for biological detection purpose and are now marketed. Microbes are usually
integrated in the biosensors to detect contamination of metals or pollutants. With the
integration of microbes into biosensors, scientists can assess the degree of contamination
in-place and get the results instantly instead of sending samples to a laboratory for testing
(Godani, 2015). In addition, pollution detection can be carried out through biological
detection methods using biosensors and immunoassays. Scragg (2005) claims that
physico-chemical transducer has been incorporated for the enhancement of biosensors
which involves the combination of a particular and sensitive derived detecting component.
Hence, environmental detection and monitoring is one of the applications of biotechnology
in environmental issues.
In conclusion, the application of biotechnology provides the researchers with new
knowledge and tools that make the jobs more efficient and easy. For example,
biotechnology can be applied in the environment area to solve and improve pollution
issues, as well as to monitor and detect the environment condition. Therefore,
biotechnology-based research can be seen as a more precise extension of conventional
approaches and probably be developed in the near future.