Bioprospecting fungi for biodegradation of textile dyes

Abstract

[Excerpt] Reactive dyes are widely used in the textile industry. Coloured effluents from dyestuff and textile industries, the major producers and users of azo dyes, not only produce visual pollution but can also be detrimental to life, as they are usually resistant to biological treatment. In addition, fungi, mainly white rot fungi (wrf), have shown the ability to degrade numerous aromatic organopollutants, including textile dyes, via oxidative mechanisms till their complete mineralisation, avoiding the formation of anilines as intermediates. In our work, textile azo dyes were synthesized using aminobenzoic and aminosulphonic acids as diazo components and bioaccessible groups such as 2-methoxyphenol (guaiacol) and 2,6-dimethoxyphenol (syringol) as coupling components. [...]