Cleanup of industrial effluents containing heavy metals : a new opportunity of ...

• Author(s): Soares, Eduardo V. ; Soares, Helena M. V. M.
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/25510
• Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Subject(s): Biosorption; Heavy metals bioremediation; Industrial effluents; Metals recycling; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Yeast
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

Heavy metal pollution is a matter of concern in industrialised countries. Contrary to organic pollutants, heavy metals are not metabolically degraded. This fact has two main consequences: its bioremediation requires another strategy and heavy metals can be indefinitely recycled. Yeast cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae are produced at high amounts as a by-product of brewing industry constituting a cheap raw material. In the present work, the possibility of valorising this type of biomass in the bioremediation of real industrial effluents containing heavy metals is reviewed. Given the auto-aggregation capacity (flocculation) of brewing yeast cells, a fast and off-cost yeast separation is achieved after the treatment of metal-laden effluent, which reduces the costs associated with the process. This is a critical issue when we are looking for an effective, eco-friendly, and low-cost technology. The possibility of the bioremediation of industrial effluents linked with the selective recovery of metals, in a strategy of simultaneous minimisation of environmental hazard of industrial wastes with financial benefits from reselling or recycling the metals, is discussed.