Recent advances biodegradation and biosorption of organic compounds from wastewater: Microalgae-bacteria consortium - A review

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Highlights

Abstract

The litter of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into the water streams and soil bodies via industrial effluents led to several adverse effects on the environment, health, and ecosystem. For the past decades, scientists have been paying efforts in the innovation and development of POPs removal from wastewater treatment. However, the conventional methods used for the removal of POPs from wastewater are costly and could lead to secondary pollution including soil and water bodies pollution. In recent, the utilization of green mechanisms such as biosorption, bioaccumulation and biodegradation has drawn attention and prelude the potential of green technology globally. Microalgae-bacteria consortia have emerged to be one of the latent wastewater treatment systems. The synergistic interactions between microalgae and bacteria could proficiently enhance the existing biological wastewater treatment system. This paper will critically review the comparison of conventional and recent advanced wastewater treatment systems and the mechanisms of the microalgae-bacteria symbiosis system.

Introduction

According to the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), water pollution occurs when toxic substances enter water bodies such as lakes, rivers, oceans, dissolves, and luting suspended in the water or deposit on the bed (Turner, 2014). These toxic substances that include organic matter, inorganic trace elements such as heavy metals and nitrogen could seriously affect the population of living organisms and the environment (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 1984). Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and dioxins are referred to as toxic and hazardous chemical compounds which tend to beget numerous detrimental effects on the environment and human health including cancer and reproductive problems (Karissa, 2009). These pollutants have normally been found from different sources, widely spanned from the air down to the soil.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a large group of synthetic chemicals with similarly structured compounds (i.e., biphenyl structure with two linked benzene rings) in which some or all of the hydrogen atoms have been substituted by chlorine atoms (World Health Organization, 2000). These compounds are highly toxic, and their persistence may be impacting the ecosystem (Schell et al., 2012). PCBs are widely used in applications such as hydraulic fluids, capacitors, transformers, and plasticizers due to their highly stable and strongly resistant characteristics. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), a chemical compound found in pesticides that were well known for mosquitoes controlling and the prevention of insect-born disease (Van Den Berg, 2009). Other common POPs such as dioxins and other pesticides chemical compounds that are effective in pests and diseases control has also been found to be released into the water streams and soil bodies from different industries. As these chemical compounds can be prolonged in the environment, bioaccumulation can occur within the living organisms in terms of the life cycle or food chain from one species to another (Chojnacka and Mikulewicz, 2014). Hence, wastewater treatment is significant before the effluents are released into natural water sources to avoid any negative impact on the health and the environment (Mat Aron et al., 2021).

One of the current obstacles for ecological engineering is to develop economically achievable solutions to deal with liquid or solid wastes as biomass supply and, preferably, enhance them into valuable by-products. The traditional chemical or physical methods of POPs removal from wastewater is highly complex and expensive. Processes such as chemical precipitation, ion exchange, solvent extraction and adsorption are high demand in energy, partial removal efficiency and could be producing numerous toxic sludge (Perelo, 2010). Therefore, it is crucial to innovate and develop wastewater treatment systems with high performance and minimum capital prerequisite. Symbiosis is a close and long-term biological interaction between similar or dissimilar groups of organisms. The types of symbiosis interactions including mutualism, commensalism, predation, parasitism, and competition. All the interactions and networks are vital for the sustenance of ecosystem reconciliation.

Microalgae-bacteria consortium is one of the symbiotic and mutualism relationships which exhibit several advantages in the energy, economy, and environment (Yong et al., 2021). In recent, the interaction of the microalgae-bacteria is highly be studied and discovered in organic wastewater treatment particularly the mechanisms of biodegradation and biosorption. Microalgae have been discerned for their great carbon dioxide fixation processes and biomass productions (Zhao and Su, 2014). Whereas it was also reported that heterotrophic bacteria could enhance the growth of microalgae by supplying carbon dioxide and other demanding biological compounds such as ammonia and nitrate (Khan et al., 2018). In the bioremediation process, microalgae could have (i) contributed oxygen molecules for the growth of the symbiotic bacteria through the process of photosynthesis, (ii) utilize carbon dioxide released from the bacteria in the production and conversion of organic compounds, and (iii) removing persistent organic compounds via biosorption or bioaccumulation pathway. While bacteria are ought to be responsible for the consumption, decomposition, and biodegradation of organic compounds by utilizing the oxygen molecules released from the microalgae (Khoo et al., 2021, Kouzuma and Watanabe, 2015). With this concept, microalgae-bacteria consortium would emerge to be a new potential to pave the way not only for the bioremediation process but the other technologies such as biofuel production and pharmaceutical production.

In this present review article, the mechanisms involved in the biodegradation of persistent organic pollutants via microalgae-bacteria consortia such as biosorption, bioaccumulation, transportation, chemical affinity, microbial community, and mobilization along with the in situ and ex situ synthesis of nanoparticles from microalgae-bacteria consortia for the bioremediation of persistent organic pollutants will be discussed in-depth. Different routes of persistent organic pollutants removal including the comparison between the conventional methods and recent advances of bioremediation processes will also be critically discussed in this review paper. By promoting the interaction between microalgae and bacteria, the symbiosis relationship has an enormous potential in stimulating advancement in green technologies in the future.

Section snippets

Different routes of persistent organic pollutants removal from organic wastewater

Wastewater is released from industries such as the food processing industry (Cristian, 2010), paper and pulp manufacturing (Hagelqvist and Granstrom, 2013), leather processing industry (Jadhav and Jadhav, 2020), rubber industry (Mohammadi et al., 2010) and municipal wastewater (Choi et al., 2017) consists of a significant number of organic compounds particularly carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and lignin. These organic compounds are commonly found as dissolved organic matter (DOM) or found

Microalgae-bacteria interaction

The interaction of microalgae and bacteria do not only include the mutually beneficial symbiosis relationship and mutual utilisation of metabolites but also involved the mutual competition and inhibition of nutrients. Generally, the mutually beneficial symbiosis relationship between microalgae and bacteria is based on the complementation of metabolism reaction, which is mainly manifested in the release, adsorption and utilisation of oxygen molecules and metabolites (Leong et al., 2019).

Mechanisms involved in the organic pollutants removal from wastewater by microalgae-bacteria consortia

Human medical antibiotics and personal hygiene products have been abusively used in the social economy. Sewage rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, heavy metals, and antibiotics continues to be produced and eventually discharged into sewage treatment plants, increasing the amount of refractory organic compounds in the ecosystem. Refractory organic compounds/POPs such as cyanide, pesticides, dyes, and antibiotic industry waste are persistent, highly toxic and complex in their composition. Generally,

Conclusion

The microalgae-bacteria symbiosis system has great potential in removing POPs from different varieties of wastewater via the synergistic interaction between them. This system possesses great succour in carbon dioxide fixation and carbon footprints reduction. With the characteristics of high tolerance to pollutants, the application of microalgae-bacteria consortia could lower the energy and cost consumption in the organic wastewater treatment compared to the conventional wastewater treatment,

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Sook Sin Chan: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources. Kuan Shiong Khoo: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing, Validation, Project administration. Kit Wayne Chew: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing, Validation, Project administration. Tau Chuan Ling: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Pau Loke Show: Writing - review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Malaysia [FRGS/1/2019/STG05/UNIM/02/2] and MyPAIR-PHC-Hibiscus Grant [MyPAIR/1/2020/STG05/UNIM/1]. This work is also financially supported by Xiamen University Malaysia Research Fund [XMUMRF/2021-C7/IENG/0033] and Hengyuan International Sdn. Bhd.

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