Engineering Biocatalytic and Biosorptive Materials for Environmental Applications

Baotong Zhu; Yingying Chen; Na Wei

doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2018.11.005

Engineering Biocatalytic and Biosorptive Materials for Environmental Applications

Trends Biotechnol. 2019 Jun;37(6):661-676. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2018.11.005. Epub 2018 Dec 4.

Authors

Baotong Zhu¹, Yingying Chen¹, Na Wei²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, 156 Fitzpatrick Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA; These authors contributed equally to this work.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, 156 Fitzpatrick Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Electronic address: nwei@nd.edu.

PMID: 30527644
DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2018.11.005

Abstract

The challenges of increasing environmental contamination and scarcity of natural resources require innovative solutions to ensure a sustainable future. Recent breakthroughs in synthetic biology and protein engineering provide promising platform technologies to develop novel engineered biological materials for beneficial applications towards environmental sustainability. In particular, biocatalysis and biosorption are receiving increasing attention as sustainable approaches for environmental remediation and resource recovery from wastes. This review focuses on up-to-date advances in engineering biocatalytic and biosorptive materials that can degrade persistent organic contaminants of emerging concern, remove hazardous metal pollutants, and recover value-added metals. Opportunities and challenges for future research are also discussed.

Keywords: biocatalysis; biosorption; environmental remediation; enzymes; metal-binding proteins and peptides; resource recovery.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Review

MeSH terms

Biocatalysis
Environmental Pollutants / isolation & purification*
Environmental Restoration and Remediation*
Protein Engineering*
Synthetic Biology*

Substances

Environmental Pollutants