Contact

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h. c. Uwe Hampel

Head
Experimental Thermal Fluid Dynamics
u.hampel@hzdr.de
Phone: +49 351 260 2772

Biochemical degradation treatment of contaminated water with loofa sponge natural fibers

Background

The contamination of aquatic systems, e.g. with textile dyes and pharmaceuticals, has severe hazardous effects on the ecosystem and human health. The common physical wastewater treatment methods usually cannot fully convert such substances into non-toxic products. On the other hand, advanced oxidation processes, which are able to do so, suffer from prolonging treatment periods and high operation costs. Therefore the removal of pollutants from water requires sustainable and innovative processes. The use of natural porous loofa materials as new biocatalyst carrier and the use of oxidative enzymes as biochemical catalysts for the treatment of contaminated water are new ideas and concepts for such a sustainable approach.

The loofa sponge is a naturally grown porous environmental-friendly material. It belongs to the cucumber family. The loofa sponge provides attractive morphological properties such as high porosity and high surface area to ensure a high enzyme loading capacity. Moreover, the loofa sponge contains a network of thin structural components (fibers) which is beneficial to reduce diffusional mass transfer barriers.



The Project

The project aims on developing a new enzymatic waste water treatment process. This includes the provision of loofa-based catalyst carriers, the immobilization of specific biocatalytic enzymes and the design of a reactor. The experimental and theoretical analyses will be used to derive guidelines for advanced waste water treatment technologies basing on that concept.

Results

An important point is the selection of a suitable reactor that ensures high loofa-biocatalyst activity and stability. Thus, a novel 8-type connected airlift-driven fluidized bed reactor was constructed, which ensures a stable unidirectional circulation. At the same time, the configuration allows complete fluidizing of the loofa catalyst.



A successful immobilization of laccase on loofa was achieved and a high laccase-loofa biocatalytic activity was obtained. Eventually, the decolorization efficiency was tested and we could demonstrate a remarkable dye removal capability compared to data from the literature.



Cooperation

  • Chair of Bioprocess Engineering, Institute of Natural Materials Technology, TU Dresden (Germany)
  • Chemical Engineering and Biochemical Engineering Department, Missouri University of Science and Technology (USA)

References

  • Mohammed I., Werner A.
    Biological water de-colorization by immobilization of enzymes on bio-inspired structured material: Method development and primary experiments.
    3rd European Congress of Applied Biotechnology-ECAB, Nice, France 2015.
  • Mohammed I., Schubert M., Hampel U.
    Enzymatic Decolorization of Dye-polluted Water Using Natural Cellular Carriers
    66th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, Quebec City, Canada 2016.
  • Mohammed I., Schubert M., Hampel U.
    Hydrodynamics of a novel 8-type Connected Airlift-Driven Fluidized Bed Reactor.
    10th World Congress of Chemical Engineering-WCCE / 4th European Congress of Applied Biotechnology-ECAB; Barcelona, Spain 2017.