Cleanup of industrial effluents containing heavy metals: a new opportunity of valorising the biomass produced by brewing industry

摘要

Heavy metal pollution is a matter of concern inindustrialised countries. Contrary to organic pollutants, heavymetals are not metabolically degraded. This fact has two mainconsequences: its bioremediation requires another strategyand heavy metals can be indefinitely recycled. Yeast cells ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae are produced at high amounts as aby-product of brewing industry constituting a cheap raw material.In the present work, the possibility of valorising thistype of biomass in the bioremediation of real industrial effluentscontaining heavy metals is reviewed. Given the autoaggregationcapacity (flocculation) of brewing yeast cells, afast and off-cost yeast separation is achieved after the treatmentof metal-laden effluent, which reduces the costs associatedwith the process. This is a critical issue when we arelooking for an effective, eco-friendly, and low-cost technology.The possibility of the bioremediation of industrial effluentslinked with the selective recovery of metals, in a strategy ofsimultaneous minimisation of environmental hazard of industrialwastes with financial benefits from reselling or recyclingthe metals, is discussed.