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Efficient removal of atrazine from aqueous solutions using magnetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae bionanomaterial

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

A novel bionanomaterial comprising Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) and Fe3O4 nanoparticles encapsulated in a sodium alginate-polyvinyl alcohol (SA-PVA) matrix was synthesized for the efficient removal of atrazine from aqueous solutions. The effects of the operating parameters, nitrogen source, and glucose and Fe3+ contents on atrazine removal were investigated, and the intermediates were detected by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In addition, the synthesized Fe3O4 particles were characterized by XRD, EDX, HR-TEM, FTIR, and hysteresis loops, and the bionanomaterial was characterized by SEM. The results showed that the maximum removal efficiency of 100% was achieved at 28 °C, a pH of 7.0, and 150 rpm with an initial atrazine concentration of 2.0 mg L−1 and that the removal efficiency was still higher than 95.53% even when the initial atrazine concentration was 50 mg L−1. Biodegradation was demonstrated to be the dominant removal mechanism for atrazine because atrazine was consumed as the sole carbon source for S. cerevisiae. The results of GC-MS showed that dechlorination, dealkylation, deamination, isomerization, and mineralization occurred in the process of atrazine degradation, and thus, a new degradation pathway was proposed. These results indicated that this bionanomaterial has great potential for the bioremediation of atrazine-contaminated water.

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Funding

Financial support from the International S&T Cooperation Program of China (Contract No.: 2015DFG92750) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 51478172, 51278464, and 51521006) is greatly appreciated.

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Author notes

  1. Xin Wu, William L. Yang and Jiaping Yu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University and Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control, Hunan University, Ministry of Education, Changsha, 410082, Hunan, China

    Xin Wu, Huijun He, William L. Yang, Jiaping Yu & Chunping Yang

  2. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Waste Treatment and Recycling, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Zhejiang, 310018, Hangzhou, China

    Chunping Yang

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  1. Xin Wu
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Correspondence to Huijun He or Chunping Yang.

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Wu, X., He, H., Yang, W.L. et al. Efficient removal of atrazine from aqueous solutions using magnetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae bionanomaterial. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 102, 7597–7610 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-9143-x

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