Biosorption of Water Pollutants by Fungal Pellets

Abstract

Fungal biosorption is an environmental biotechnology based on the ability of the fungal cell wall to concentrate harmful water pollutants. Among its advantages are its simplicity, high efficiency, flexibility of operation, and low cost. The biosorptive performance of fungal pellets is getting growing attention since they offer process advantages over the culture of disperse mycelia, such as an enhanced biomass separation, and a high resilience in severe environmental conditions. In this review, biosorption capacity of fungal pellets towards heavy metals, dyes, phenolic compounds, humic substances, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals was reviewed. Available data about the adsorption capacity of pellets, their removal efficiency, and the operational conditions used were collected and synthesized. The studies relying on biodegradation were discarded to present only the possibilities of fungal pellets for removing these concern pollutants through biosorption. It was found that the biosorption of complex mixtures of pollutants on fungal pellets is scarcely studied, as well as the interfering effect of anions commonly found in water and wastewater. Furthermore, there is a lack of research with real wastewater and at pilot and large scale. These topics need to be further explored to take full advantage of fungal pellets on improving the quality of aquatic systems.

Removal of two cytostatic drugs: bleomycin and vincristine by white-rot fungi – a sorption study

“…In addition, differences were also observed between sorption on alive versus dead fungal hyphae [ 35 ]. The main mechanism involved in the drug removal by alive biomass is the bioaccumulation of the compound in the cell wall and the cytoplasm, while for dead fungi the monolayer adsorption on the surface of pellets occurs mostly [ 32 ]. What is more, in active biomass, the transport in living cells may play an important role [ 34 , 35 ].…”

“…Generally, the greatest adsorption efficiency in case of heat-killed fungal pellets has been attributed to: the increase of the active sites due to the denaturation of the cell wall proteins, displaying higher biomass hydrophilicity by eliminating hydrophobic groups (e.g. diminution of −CH 3 groups) from the cell wall and disrupting the pellet structure by expanding its porosity [ 32 ]. On the one hand, some authors believe that using dead biomass is preferable to live biomass because toxic pollutants will not have any effect on the sorption process [ 42 ].…”

“…On the one hand, some authors believe that using dead biomass is preferable to live biomass because toxic pollutants will not have any effect on the sorption process [ 42 ]. In addition, there are no nutrition requirements to maintain the biomass growth, which makes the use of dead mycelium very interesting due to the low cost of acquisition of these biological materials, a large variety of biomasses and feasibility of its storing for long periods [ 19 , 32 , 42 ]. What is more, such factors as the pH value or temperature are less stringent for the biosorption carried out by dead cells and biomass can be reused for several cycles after regeneration.…”

Microbial Action in Wastewater and Sludge

“…The great potential of fungal pellets to remove dangerous water pollutants is extensively presented and discussed in the article by Legorreta-Castañeda et al [13]. In this review, knowledge of the biosorption capacity of fungal pellets towards phenolic compounds, dyes, humic substances, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals, after a short presentation of the pollutants considered, was synthesized.…”

“…Among them, two articles present the bioaugmentation potential of selected bacterial strains to improve the aerobic treatment of phenolic landfill leachate [9,10]. The third article concerns the bioaugmentation of activated sludge with a bacterial consortium in order to remove selected non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [11], the fourth is a mycoremediation study of old and intermediate landfill leachates [12], and the final review article indicates fungal biosorption as an eco-friendly, economical, and effective method for the removal of harmful pollutants from wastewater [13].…”