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Laccases to take on the challenge of emerging organic contaminants in wastewater

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Abstract

The removal of emerging organic contaminants from municipal wastewater poses a major challenge unsatisfactorily addressed by present wastewater treatment processes. Enzyme-catalyzed transformation of emerging organic contaminants (EOC) has been proposed as a possible solution to this major environmental issue more than a decade ago. Especially, laccases gained interest in this context in recent years due to their broad substrate range and since they only need molecular oxygen as a cosubstrate. In order to ensure the stability of the enzymes and allow their retention and reuse, either immobilization or insolubilization of the biocatalysts seems to be the prerequisite for continuous wastewater treatment applications. The present review summarizes the research conducted on EOC transformation with laccases and presents an overview of the possible immobilization techniques. The goal is to assess the state of the art and identify the next necessary steps that have to be undertaken in order to implement laccases as a tertiary wastewater treatment process in sewage treatment plants.

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Acknowledgments

The support of the European Commission within the 7th framework program under grant agreement 265946 (MINOTAURUS) and FP7-KBBE-2012-6-311933 (Water4Crops), the Swiss National Science Foundation, National Research Program 66 (Project 4066-136686), and the Commission for Technology and Innovation of the Swiss Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology (Grant PFNM-NM 12608.1) is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are due to Yannick-Serge Zimmermann (Institute for Ecopreneurship, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland) for the valuable advice.

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The authors confirm that they have no conflict of interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ecopreneurship, School of Life Sciences, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Gründenstrasse 40, Muttenz, CH-4132, Switzerland

    Christoph A. Gasser, Erik M. Ammann & Philippe F.-X. Corvini

  2. Institute for Chemistry and Bioanalytics, School of Life Sciences, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Gründenstrasse 40, Muttenz, CH-4132, Switzerland

    Patrick Shahgaldian

  3. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University Xianlin Campus, Xianlin Avenue 163, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Philippe F.-X. Corvini

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  1. Christoph A. Gasser
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  2. Erik M. Ammann
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  4. Philippe F.-X. Corvini
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Correspondence to Philippe F.-X. Corvini.

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Gasser, C.A., Ammann, E.M., Shahgaldian, P. et al. Laccases to take on the challenge of emerging organic contaminants in wastewater. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 98, 9931–9952 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6177-6

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