Restoration of heavy metal-contaminated soil and water through biosorbents: A review of current understanding and future challenges

Medusomyces gisevii: cultivation, composition, and application

Tea fungus (Medusomyces gisevii) is a natural symbiotic consortium of yeast-like fungi and bacteria. Scientific literature provides a lot of information about the consortium, but it is largely fragmentary. We aimed to review and systematize the information on the research topic. We studied scientific publications, conference proceedings, intellectual property, regulatory documents, and Internet resources on the M. gisevii consortium using Scopus, Web of Science, e.LIBRARY.RU, and Google Academy. The methods applied included registration, grouping, classification, comparative analysis, and generalization. We described the origin and composition of tea fungus, specifying the microorganisms that make up its symbiotic community depending on the place of origin. Then, we reviewed the stages of fermentation and cultivation conditions in various nutrient media and presented the composition of the culture liquid. Finally, we analyzed the antimicrobial effect of M. gisevii on a number of microorganisms and delineated some practical uses of the fungus. The data presented in this article can be used to analyze or develop new methods for the cultivation and application of M. gisevii. We specified some possibilities for using not only the culture liquid but also the fruit body of the fungus in various industries.

Integrated approaches to mitigate threats from emerging potentially toxic elements: A way forward for sustainable environmental management

Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) such as toxic metal (loid)s and other emerging hazardous contaminants, exist in the environment and poses a serious threat. A large amount of wastewater containing PTEs such as cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, arsenic, lead, zinc, etc. Release from industries during production process. Besides these, chemical-based fertilizers used in soils during crop production have become one of the crucial sources of PTEs. Various techniques are being employed for the mitigation of PTEs like chemical precipitation, ion exchange, coagulation, activated carbon, adsorption, membrane filtration, and bioremediation. Among these mitigation strategies, biological processes such as bioremediation, phytoremediation etc. Are extensively used, as they are economic have high-efficiency rate and are eco-friendly. This review intends to provide information on PTEs contamination through various sources; along with the toxicity of metal (loid)s with respect to their patterns of transmission and risks in the changing environment. Various remediation methods for the management of these pollutants along with their techno-economic perspective are also summarized in this review.

Removal of Cobalt (II) from Waters Contaminated by the Biomass of Eichhornia crassipes

Due to the increase in contamination of aquatic niches by different heavy metals, different technologies have been studied to eliminate these pollutants from contaminated aquatic sources. So the objective of this work was to determine the removal of cobalt (II) in aqueous solution by the biomass of the aquatic lily or water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) which, is one of the main weeds present in fresh water, due to its rapid reproduction, growth, and high competitiveness, by the colorimetric method of the methyl isobutyl ketone. The removal was evaluated at different pHs (4.0–8.0) for 28 h. The effect of temperature in the range from 20 °C to 50 °C and the removal at different initial concentrations of cobalt (II) of 100 to 500 mg/L was also studied. The highest bioadsorption (100 mg/L) was at 28 h, at pH 5.0 and 28 °C, with a removal capacity of 73.1%, which is like some reports in the literature. Regarding the temperature, the highest removal was at 50 °C, at 28 h, with a removal of 89%. At the metal and biomass concentrations analyzed, its removal was 82% with 400–500 mg/L, and 100% with 5 g of natural biomass at 20 h. In addition, this completely removes the metal in situ (100 mg/L in contaminated water, at 7 days of incubation, with 10 g of natural biomass in 100 mL). So, the natural biomass can be used to remove it from industrial wastewater, even if in vivo, only eliminate 17.3% in 4 weeks.