Microbial Nanoremediation of Microplastics: A review
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Date
2024-08-02
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South aAfrican Journal of Chemistry
Abstract
Microplastics’ ubiquity in all environmental matrices worldwide, coupled with poor plastic waste management practices, calls for serious
health and environmental attention. Microplastics are persistent and slow-degrading contaminants with a high potential to fragment as
well as adsorb other contaminants. Along with macroplastic waste reduction methods such as incineration, recycling, landfilling, pyrolysis,
and bioremediation approaches novel methods to remove microplastics from the environment are necessary. The multidisciplinary and
progressive area of science, nanotechnology, has the potential for diverse applications with engineered nanomaterials that have superior
properties over micro-particles because of their size and surface area ratio. The integration of microbial remediation and nanotechnology
holds great promise for the nano-remediation of persistent environmental microplastics. Here, we review plastic-degrading microbes
(Bacillus sp., Diplococcus sp., Klebsiella sp., Moraxella sp., Streptococcus sp., Staphylococcus sp., Micrococcus, Pseudomonas, Aspergillus sp),
microbial synthesis of nanoparticles (Zinc oxide, iron oxide, copper oxide, magnesium oxide, titanium oxide and others), and nanoparticle
synthesis with plastic-degrading microbes. This article also discusses the mechanism of microbial nano-remediation and microbial
interactions with nanomaterials. The advantages, limitations, and prospects of microbial nano-remediation of microplastics are discussed.
This review suggests the use of metagenomics to further identify a wider range of organisms for bioremediation of microplastics, while
also proposing the use of artificial intelligence for the construction of immobilized microbial nano-enzyme composites for degrading
microplastics faster.
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Akinhanmi et al., 2024