Harnessing the power of enzymes for environmental stewardship

The Protagonism of Biocatalysis in Green Chemistry and Its Environmental Benefits

“…If the inhibitory or toxic contaminants can be specifically degraded, the residual organic material in the waste can be biologically treated, thus reducing the treatment cost. In this case, biocatalysts can be employed to achieve a selective removal of compounds in effluent treatment [91].…”

“…However, the idea of employing biocatalysts to remove specific contaminants in mixed residues was established after 1970 [94]. Since then, biocatalysts have been used as an alternative to conventional wastewater treatment and have increased the interest of many researchers due to their several advantages including the increase of recalcitrant organic pollutants, which reduces the possibility of carrying out an efficient conventional biological or chemical treatment; recognition of the ability of biocatalysts to act on specific compounds; and the recent advances in biotechnology, which rendered feasible the economical production of biocatalysts [91].…”

“…There are many studies on the synthesis and comparison of SENs with free enzymes; however, SEN applications for wastewater treatment are still in the rational design phase [98,99]. Other authors, like Demarche et al [91], suggest that enzymatic technology must be combined with the technologies available for obtaining better results.…”

“…Biocatalysts can be used to treat several effluents, including wastewater with phenolic contaminants, pesticides, surfactants, heavy metals, and cyanide, residues from pulp and paper industry, food industry residues, in sludge dehydration, bioconversion of crustacean shells, and pectin degradation [91,103]. This review will present some examples of biocatalysts used in the treatment Catalysts 2017, 7, 9 9 of 34 of effluents rich in fat content (food industries) and removal of color and phenolic compounds (textile industries).…”

“…Two groups of oxidoreductase enzymes have been very investigated for wastewater color removal, polyphenol oxidases and peroxidases. A search of the literature reveals many laboratory-scale researches on the degradation of dyes with biocatalysts [91,126]. However, these studies are conducted with synthetic solutions of a single dye in water, in other words, in the absence of interference and inhibitors normally present in industrial effluents.…”