Diesel is a fuel commonly used in Antarctica to supply vessels and domestic applications on site. The increasing human activities in the continent consequently have generated high fuel demand, which in turn has increased the occurrence of oil pollution due to accidental events during refueling. A related study received growing interest as more detrimental effects have been reported on Antarctic ecosystems. By adopting the bibliometric analysis, the research on diesel pollution in Antarctica collected in the Scopus database was systematically analysed. An increment in annual publication growth from 1980 to 2019 was observed and two research clusters were illustrated with “hydrocarbons” as the core keyword. Several attempts have been conducted over the past decades to remove anthropogenic hydrocarbon from previous abandoned whaling sites as well as recent oil spill incidents. However, the remote and polar conditions of Antarctica constrained the installation and operation of clean-up infrastructure. This review also briefly encompasses the approaches from past to present on the management of fuel pollution in Antarctica and highlights the potential of phytoremediation as a new bioremediation prospect.

Diesel acts as a main energy source to complement human activities in Antarctica. However, the increased expedition in Antarctica has threatened the environment as well as its living organisms. While more efforts on the use of renewable energy are being done, most activities in Antarctica still depend heavily on the use of diesel. Diesel contaminants in their natural state are known to be persistent, complex and toxic. The low temperature in Antarctica worsens these issues, making pollutants more significantly toxic to their environment and indigenous organisms. A bibliometric analysis had demonstrated a gradual increase in the number of studies on the microbial hydrocarbon remediation in Antarctica over the year. It was also found that these studies were dominated by those that used bacteria as remediating agents, whereas very little focus was given on fungi and microalgae. This review presents a summary of the collective and past understanding to the current findings of Antarctic microbial enzymatic degradation of hydrocarbons as well as its genotypic adaptation to the extreme low temperature.