Biodegradation is the process of chemical breakdown of a substance to smaller products by the act of microorganisms or their enzymes. Biodegradation is often used interchangeably with “mineralization”, but, in fact, mineralization represents the breakdown of organic materials into inorganic forms brought about mainly by microorganisms.

All naturally occurring organic compounds are biodegradable provided the environmental conditions are favourable. In contrast, the explosive development of synthetic organic chemistry during the last few decades has led to the large scale production of bewildering variety of synthetic organic compounds.