The biotechnological approach used for pollutants remotion has presented good yields at relatively low cost, nevertheless it still presents a wide margin for improvement to become the principal response to environmental contingencies. As immobilization of microorganisms has demonstrated the decrease of most of the disadvantages of biodegradation, this work aims to briefly review the microorganism’s immobilization for environmental purposes, focusing on encapsulation and exploring its different techniques and carrier materials. The principal reasons to encapsulate microorganisms for bioremediation, the types of capsules and their main characteristics, the physical, chemical, or physicochemical encapsulation methods that have been applied for environmental purposes, and those that have potential in the field, are also revised and explained. The principal biopolymers used to encapsulate and the characteristics they can confer to the capsules. Finally, recent cases of encapsulated microorganisms for bioremediation applications are discussed, highlighting the tendency in the works of the last decade for its application in contaminated waters and the need to explore more carrier materials and encapsulation techniques are also explored.

用于污染物去除的生物技术方法以相对较低的成本获得了良好的收益，但它仍然有很大的改进空间，成为对环境突发事件的主要反应。由于微生物的固定化已经证明了生物降解的大多数缺点的减少，这项工作旨在简要回顾微生物的环境固定化，重点是封装并探索其不同的技术和载体材料。包封微生物用于生物修复的主要原因、胶囊的类型及其主要特征、已应用于环境目的的物理、化学或物理化学包封方法以及在该领域具有潜力的方法也进行了修订和解释。用于封装的主要生物聚合物及其赋予胶囊的特性。最后，讨论了用于生物修复应用的包封微生物的最新案例，强调了过去十年将其应用于受污染水体的工作趋势以及探索更多载体材料和包封技术的必要性。