Biologically engineered microbes for bioremediation of electronic waste: Wayposts, challenges and future directions

Abstract

In the face of a burgeoning stream of e‐waste globally, e‐waste recycling becomes increasingly imperative, not only to mitigate the environmental and health risks it poses but also as an urban mining strategy for resource recovery of precious metals, rare Earth elements, and even plastics. As part of the continual efforts to develop greener alternatives to conventional approaches of e‐waste recycling, biologically assisted degradation of e‐waste offers a promising recourse by capitalising on certain microorganisms' innate ability to interact with metals or degrade plastics. By harnessing emerging genetic tools in synthetic biology, the evolution of novel or enhanced capabilities needed to advance bioremediation and resource recovery could be potentially accelerated by improving enzyme catalytic abilities, modifying substrate specificities, and increasing toxicity tolerance. Yet, the management of e‐waste presents formidable challenges due to its massive volume, high component complexity, and associated toxicity. Several limitations will need to be addressed before nascent laboratory‐scale achievements in bioremediation can be translated to viable industrial applications. Nonetheless, vested groups, involving both start‐up and established companies, have taken visionary steps towards deploying microbes for commercial implementation in e‐waste recycling.

Exploring bioleaching potential of indigenous Bacillus sporothermodurans ISO1 for metals recovery from PCBs through sequential leaching process

“…Pulp denisty or amount of e-waste is another significant aspect that impacts the bioleaching potential of microorganism. As the concentration of e-waste increases, the amalgam of hazradous metals, inorganic pollutants in e-waste bacome toxic to microorganism and ceases the growth of micoorganism during bioleaching process and therefore reduce the production of lixiviant and metals solubilization significantly (Han et al 2022; Mudali et al 2021). These observations are based on the effect of one parameter at a time.…”

“…In addition, Mintek, BacTech, N2S are some other firms that are commercializing the biohydrometallurgy technique for recycling e-waste at large-scale operations. (Han et al 2022).…”

“…The researchers have continuously been developing many methods to overwhelm the limitations and to manifest this technology for industrial scale applications. The effect of synergistic behaviour on bioleaching activity have also examined with different cynogenic and sulphur reducing bacterial strains (Han et al 2022;Shittu et al 2021). Pradhan and Kumar (2012) utilized mixed culture of Chromobacterium violacium and Pseudomonas fluo rescence to enhance the Cu recovery.…”

Thermophilic lipases in industrial applications: Stutzerimonas stutzeri as a Case Study in Nigeria and the US

“…Joint research projects, technology transfer agreements, and knowledge exchange programs enable Nigerian researchers to leverage external support and advance their capabilities in lipase research. Furthermore, partnerships with international organizations and funding agencies facilitate access to grants, scholarships, and fellowships, enhancing research opportunities and promoting scientific excellence in Nigeria (Ejairu, et al, 2024;Ashok, et al, 2024;Han, et al, 2022).…”

Corrigendum: Biologically engineered microbes for bioremediation of electronic waste: Wayposts, challenges and future directions

“…In Ref. [1], the authors wish to acknowledge the funder. Below is the acknowledgment statement: “This project is partially supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, under its Competitive Research Programme (Award # NRF‐CRP22‐2019‐0005)”. …”