醸造所からバイオフィルターへ: 酵母ベースの浄水を可能にする(From Brewery to Biofilter: Making Yeast-Based Water Purification Possible)

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2024-05-15 ジョージア工科大学

ジョージア工科大学の研究者は、酵母を利用した環境に優しい水や土壌の浄化方法を開発しました。酵母は発酵過程で生じる安価な副産物で、バイオ吸着材として効果的です。研究により、酵母が微量の鉛を迅速に除去できることが確認されましたが、浄化後の酵母を取り除く追加処理が課題でした。そこで、MITの化学技術者と協力し、酵母をカプセル化することで問題を解決しました。カプセルは水を通して鉛を吸着し、取り除きやすくします。プロトタイプのバイオフィルターで実証した結果、EPAの基準に適合するまで鉛を除去できました。この方法は、他の金属やレアアース元素の除去にも応用可能で、環境に優しい循環型アプローチとして注目されています。

<関連情報>

水から微量鉛をスケーラブルに除去する酵母入りハイドロゲルカプセル Yeast-laden hydrogel capsules for scalable trace lead removal from water

Devashish Gokhale, Patritsia M. Stathatou, Christos E. Athanasiou and Patrick S. Doyle
RSC Sustainability  Published:15 May 2024
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SU00052H

Abstract

Trace heavy metals are present in water resources globally, jeopardizing ecosystems and human health. Lead is one of the most prevalent and toxic trace pollutants, with numerous incidents of lead-contaminated drinking water across the United States. Conventional treatment processes fail to remove trace lead from water in a resource-efficient manner. Yeast can effectively remove lead from water via a rapid mass transport process, called biosorption, even when lead concentrations are below 1 part-per-million. Rapid and high lead uptake can enable the application of this inexpensive and abundant biomaterial to water treatment, but scalability is limited by the need to remove any added yeast from water. Here, we scale up a yeast-based treatment process without requiring additional separation steps. Yeast cells are confined within hydrogel capsules that are sufficiently large for easy separation from water by gravitational settling, and sufficiently porous not to limit adsorption capacity and kinetics. The yeast-laden capsules exhibit an uptake capacity of 21 mg g−1, comparable to free yeast under the same conditions, reaching equilibrium within the first 5 minutes of contact. We assess the mechanical robustness of the yeast-laden capsules, and construct a lab-scale proof-of-concept packed-bed biofilter, capable of treating trace lead-contaminated water and meeting USEPA drinking water guidelines while operating continuously for 12 days, to demonstrate the scalability of our approach. By overcoming common separation and structural stability issues that limit scalability of biological water treatment methods, our work offers an innovative and sustainable solution targeting emerging contaminants.

醸造所からバイオフィルターへ: 酵母ベースの浄水を可能にする(From Brewery to Biofilter: Making Yeast-Based Water Purification Possible)

1102水質管理
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