Next Article in Journal
A Multicenter Study about the Population Treated in the Respiratory Triage Stations Deployed by the Red Cross during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Previous Article in Journal
Composting of Organic Solid Waste of Municipal Origin: The Role of Research in Enhancing Its Sustainability
 
 
Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
Journals
IJERPH
Volume 20
Issue 1
10.3390/ijerph20010308
ijerph-logo
Submit to this Journal Review for this Journal Propose a Special Issue
► Article Menu

Article Menu

share Share announcement Help format_quote Cite question_answer Discuss in SciProfiles thumb_up
...
Endorse textsms
...
Comment
first_page
settings
Order Article Reprints
Font Type:
Arial Georgia Verdana
Font Size:
Aa Aa Aa
Line Spacing:
Column Width:
Background:
Article

Four Decades of Laccase Research for Wastewater Treatment: Insights from Bibliometric Analysis

by
Kana Puspita
1,†,
Williams Chiari
2,3,†,
Syahrun N. Abdulmadjid
4,
Rinaldi Idroes
5,6 and
Muhammad Iqhrammullah
3,5,*
1
Department of Chemistry Education, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
2
Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
3
Innovative Sustainability Lab, PT. Biham Riset dan Edukasi, Banda Aceh 23243, Indonesia
4
Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
5
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
6
Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(1), 308; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010308
Submission received: 26 November 2022 / Revised: 20 December 2022 / Accepted: 21 December 2022 / Published: 25 December 2022
(This article belongs to the Section Water Science and Technology)
Browse Figures
Review Reports Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Increasing trends of environmental pollution and emerging contaminants from anthropogenic activities have urged researchers to develop innovative strategies in wastewater management, including those using the biocatalyst laccase (EC 1.10.3.2). Laccase works effectively against a variety of substrates ranging from phenolic to non-phenolic compounds which only require molecular oxygen to be later reduced to H2O as the final product. In this study, we performed a bibliometric analysis on the metadata of literature acquired through the Scopus database (24 October 2022) with keyword combination “Laccase” AND “Pollutant” OR “Wastewater”. The included publications were filtered based on year of publication (1978–2022), types of articles (original research articles and review articles) and language (English). The metadata was then exported in a CSV (.csv) file and visualized on VosViewer software. A total of 1865 publications were identified, 90.9% of which were original research articles and the remaining 9.1% were review articles. Most of the authors were from China (n = 416; 22.3%) and India (n = 276; 14.79%). In the case of subject area, ‘Environmental Science’ emerged with the highest published documents (n = 1053; 56.46%). The identified papers mostly cover laccase activity in degrading pollutants, and chitosan, which can be exploited for the immobilization. We encourage more research on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment, especially in terms of collaborations among organizations.

1. Introduction

The challenge to achieve a sustainable planet has become more difficult with the increase of population resulting in increased hazardous contaminant in water environments [1,2]. Moreover, municipal waste and pharmaceutical waste, especially those deriving from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, have alarmed researchers in environmental management-related fields due to their harmfulness and persistence [3,4]. This environmental threat has affected the innovation on wastewater treatments, including those using renewable and nontoxic oxidative degrading enzyme—laccase [5,6].
The mechanism of laccase in degrading organic pollutants is dependent on redox reactions involving molecular oxygen and the reduction of Cu2+ to Cu+ nucleus of this enzyme. Laccase was first introduced as an unspecific enzyme observed in Rhus vernicifera sap in Japan [7], and its name was only given a decade later following the success of its isolation and purification [8]. Researchers have isolated the enzyme from various plant, fungal, and bacterial species [9,10,11]. Strategies involved in laccase-related research for wastewater treatment include the isolation of laccase from new sources. Trametes versicolor is a popular source of enzyme with high catalytic degrading activity against dying agent contaminants [12]. Other than the fungus, Pleurotus ostreatus [13,14] and marine fungi (such as Trichoderma asperellum, Stemphylium lucomagnoense, and Aspergillus nidulans [15]) have been reported to produce laccase with the enzymatic degradation activity against organic pollutants. The exploration of laccase-producing microbes has been carried out on wastewater as well [16,17,18].
Rapid progress in genetic modifications have allowed researchers to employ these as strategies to obtain more efficacious laccase. The use of metagenomic data collected from tannery wastewater to obtain thermo-halotolerant laccase has been reported [19]. UV light-induced mutation has also been used to isolate higher efficient laccase from P. ostreatus mutant [20]. Mutation involving polymerase chain reaction has been involved in a research protocol to produce laccase from Bacillus licheniformis mutant [21]. Furthermore, innovation in laccase-themed research also includes the enzyme immobilization to promote its stability and reusability, which is significant to reduce the wastewater treatment cost [22,23,24].
Our work aimed to provide the research landscape of laccase-assisted wastewater treatment based on bibliometric analysis. By utilizing the metadata of published studies obtained from a scientific database (i.e., Scopus), a bibliometric analysis could be performed to map the research trends, especially those from newly emerging fields. The occurrence and incidence of environmental pollution have been analysed using bibliometric analysis against different contexts (i.e., mining effluent) [25,26]. In our previous project, we have employed the same analysis to reveal the trend of COVID-19-related polymer research in [27]. Herein, we present a bibliometric analysis on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment which has not been reported previously.

2. Methods

2.1. Study Design and Searching Strategy

This study employed the Scopus database for literature search reporting laccase utilization in wastewater treatment. The keywords used in the Scopus database search were as follows: (“Laccase” AND (“Pollutant” OR “Wastewater”)) without constrains set in the publication year. The search resulted in 2073 papers, and was then filtered to include only finalized publications (including original articles, review articles, and any types of publication). Only papers written in English were included. Thereafter, we obtained 1865 papers included in this study. The workflow diagram of the literature search performed in this study has been presented in Figure 1. All metadata were downloaded from Scopus database as a CSV (.csv) file. The metadata were visualized using VosViewer 1.6.17. Crosschecking was conducted to avoid potential disambiguation in the exported data.

2.2. Data Analysis and Visualization

Microsoft Excel 2016 was used to analyze the selected papers and to export the graphs and tables needed to present the paper type, source journals, top 10 organizations or countries and the most cited papers. Data were double-checked using Biblioshiny (https://www.bibliometrix.org/, accessed on 17 December 2022). Furthermore, VosViewer 1.6.17. was used to conduct the bibliometric analysis such as the co-authorship/co-occurrence analysis and to generate data visualization.

3. Results

3.1. Characteristic of Identified Papers on Laccase and Pollutant or Wastewater

A total of 1865 papers of original articles (n = 1697, 90.9%) and review articles (n = 168, 9.1%) regarding laccase and pollutant/wastewater were identified through a Scopus database search with the publication year ranging from 1978 to 2022. A majority of the identified papers (n = 1413, 75.76%) were published in the past decade (2012–2022), showing the increase of the study of lacasse with regard to its use in dealing with pollutants or wastewater (Figure 2).
Environmental Science (n = 1052, 56.4%), Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (n = 581, 31.15%), and Chemical Engineering (n = 561, 30.08%) were the most studied subject areas among papers related to laccase and pollutants or wastewater (Table 1). A total of 165 journals published 1865 papers related to laccase and pollutants or wastewater, with only 16 journals publishing more than 20 papers (Table 2). These 16 journals (9.69% of total journals) published 701 papers (37.58% of total papers). Bioresource Technology (n = 108, 5.79%) was the leading journal publishing the most papers, followed by the Journal of Hazardous Materials (n = 95, 5.09%) and Chemosphere (n = 89, 4.77%). These three journals were also the only ones to publish more than 50 papers, contributing to 15.65% of total papers published (Table 2).

3.2. Top 10 Organizations, Countries, and Funding Sources

From the analysis, Shivaji University (n = 147, 7.88%), Jiangnan University (n = 95, 5.09%), and Tianjin University (n = 92, 4.93%) were revealed as the three most productive organizations, as well as the only organizations with more than 90 published papers (Table 3). Almost a half of the papers were published in China (n = 416,22.3%), India (n = 276, 14.79%) and Spain (n = 162, 8.68%) combined (Table 4). Finally, the top three funding sources were the National Natural Science Foundation of China (n = 225, 13.67%), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (n = 48, 2.57%), and the European Regional Development Fund (n = 41, 2.19%) (Table 5).

3.3. Mostly Cited Article

There was a total of 74,833 citations for 1865 papers, averaging 40.12 citations per paper and 1700.75 citations per year (1978–2022). The most cited paper was Biodegradation aspects of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): A review, authored by Haritash, A.K. and Kaushik, C.P. in 2009, which was cited in 2072 papers, almost twice as many as Technologies for the removal of phenol from fluid streams: A short review of recent developments, written by Busca, G., et al. in 2008, cited in 1046 papers. There were only three papers cited more than 1000 times. The trend in citations continued to rise across the years, and peaked in 2022 with 11249 citations. The data of the top 10 most cited papers have been presented (Table 6).

3.4. Results from Co-Authorship Networking Analysis

A co-authorship analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship among authors, organizations and countries according to the number of papers they published together. This analysis indicates the trends of collaborations and identifies the leading authors, organizations, and countries in terms of the related study, which in this case was laccase and pollutant/wastewater. Using VosViewer software, a visualization map will be generated which will also show nodes of various sizes representing the author, organization, or country. These nodes will also be connected by a line called Link Strength (LS), where thickness determines the link strength corresponding to the number of co-authored papers and how strong the collaboration is between the two authors, organizations, or countries. All links of a node will be accumulated as Total Link Strength (TLS), representing how strong the author, organization, or country is connected to others [38].
To analyze the authors’ co-authorship, the minimum number of papers per author was set to three and the minimum times of citations of an author was set to 0. Of 5573 identified authors, 689 met the thresholds. The network visualization and overlay visualization maps are shown in Figure 3. Zhang, X. was the leading author in terms of Total Link Strength (Documents = 35, citations = 827, TLS = 125), followed by Govindwar, S. P. (Documents = 36, citations = 2453, TLS = 98), Caminal, G. (Documents = 25, citations = 1473, TLS = 97) and Nghiem, L.D. (Documents = 18, citations = 915, TLS = 97). Iqbal, H.M.N. and Bilal X. (LS = 18) had the most collaborations in publishing the papers.
Meanwhile, an organizational’ co-authorship analysis was conducted on 4165 identified organizations, with the minimum number of papers per organization set to three and the minimum times of citation of an organization was set to 0. Of 4165 organizations, 97 met the thresholds, however only 11 organizations were found to be linked to each other. The network visualization and overlay visualization maps are shown in Figure 4. The School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian (Documents = 18, citations = 1045, TLS = 25) and School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, RMIT University Melbourne, Australia (Documents = 6, citations = 472, TLS = 15) were the leading organizations. The lack of connected nodes to be shown on the visualization map shows that there is still a lack of collaboration among organizations, with o the School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian (China) and Technologico de Monterrey (Mexico) collaborating the most (LS = 5).
Finally, countries’ co-authorship analysis was conducted on 89 identified countries, with the minimum number of papers per country set to three and the minimum times of citations of a country set to 0. The results of this analysis have been presented in Figure 5. Of 89 countries, 65 met the thresholds. The top three countries were China (Documents = 416, citations = 11,579, TLS = 167), India (Documents = 276, citations = 13,240, TLS = 127) and Spain (Documents = 162, citations = 10,551, TLS = 138). There were only four countries that published more than 100 papers, including the aforementioned top three and the United States. India and South Korea had the most collaborations (LS = 31), followed by China and the United States (LS = 25) and China and Mexico (LS = 20).

3.5. Keyword Co-Occurrence Analysis

Keyword co-occurrence analysis is a visualization approach to indicate how frequent and high the connected terms or words used in papers are related to a specific field of research. This analysis is also able to identify the development trend of the research focus, generally grouping the keywords into clusters. Using VosViewer software, each node indicates the keyword, while the link line connecting the nodes indicate the keyword relationship and their use on a paper. Both nodes and link lines are varied in size, showing the popularity of the keyword.
For this study, a total of 3777 keywords were identified, with the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword set to 10. Of 3777 keywords, 100 met the threshold. The most used main keyword in the study on laccase and pollutant/wastewater was laccase (occurrences = 753), while the other included keywords were biodegradation (occurrences = 189), decolorization (occurrences = 165), bioremediation (occurrences = 141) and immobilization (occurrences = 102). These five keywords were also the only five keywords to pass the 100 occurrences-mark. The network visualization shown in Figure 6a shows different colours based on the keywords’ closeness to a certain research theme. The keywords coloured in red indicate their closeness to laccase immobilization; in blue—biodegradation; in green—redox enzymes similar to laccase (i.e., peroxidase); in purple—ligninolytic enzyme; in yellow—laccase effectiveness against various pollutants based on decolorization; and in cyan—types of pollutant which could be effectively removed by laccase (including lignin, catechol, phenolic compounds, and olive oil mill wastewater). Nonetheless, it is not clear what research theme is indicated by the keywords cluster in orange colour.
The density visualization was altered to show the keyword change trends across the past 20 years, as the default range (1978–2022) did not show any significant change over the keywords use (Figure 6b). The analysis revealed that in the last 10 years, laccase-assisted wastewater treatment mostly involved the enzyme immobilization indicated by its performance in biodegradation and decolorization. Chitosan, a supporting polymer material, was found as the most connected keyword (Figure 6b).
Density visualization of the keywords that occurred in laccase-assisted wastewater treatment research has been presented in Figure 6c. The analysis indicated that the keywords in red occurred in papers with the highest density, followed by keywords grouped in yellow, green, cyan, and blue. The analysis suggested that biodegradation was the keyword with the highest density. Immobilization, decolorization, and biosorption were the only keywords presented in yellow coloured zone. Types of pollutant are found localized in the green coloured area, namely bisphenol, dye, wastewater, and azo dye.

4. Discussion

Laccases (EC 1.10.3.2), a member of the multicopper oxidases family, have been reported for their efficacy in removing phenolic or non-phenolic contaminating agents which can be obtained through an isolation from plants, bacterial, or fungal species [39]. Despite its variety in structure (as isolated from different organisms), they have highly conserved region amino acids which are covalently bonded with the copper centres [40,41]. Laccase induces oxidative reaction against a phenolic molecule involving one electron from one of the enzyme’s Cu centres (Cu2+/Cu+) to produce a phenolic radical. This initiates a long chain reaction which eventually induces the cleavage of the organic contaminant and the reduction of molecular O2 into H2O [42]. In terms of efficiency, an immobilized laccase was reported to yield a 90% or higher decontamination rate [22,43,44,45,46]. As many strategies have been employed to improve the utilization of laccase in wastewater treatment, we have performed a bibliometric analysis on a big and reliable scientific database, Scopus [47].
A bibliometric analysis was performed on the 1865 identified papers reporting the utility of laccase in pollutant or wastewater treatment. This study aimed to provide a thorough assessment of the study status according to the source journals, leading organizations, countries and the collaborations between each other. Bioresearch Technology published the highest number of papers about laccase and wastewater or pollutants (5.79% of 1865 papers), followed by the Journal of Hazardous Materials (5.09% of the papers). Govindwar, S.P. published the most number of papers and also recorded the highest number of citations. An author co-authorship analysis showed that Iqbal, H.M.N. and Bilal, M. had the highest number of collaborations between each other.
The organizations publishing papers on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment were centred in China and India, with Shivaji University (India), Jiangnan University (China), and Tianjin University (China) producing the most papers compared to other institutions. China published the largest number of papers (22.3% of papers), almost twice as many as India (14.79% of papers). These two countries were also the only ones who managed to pass the 10% mark. China’s dominance may occur due to its large funding sources, one of them being the National Natural Science Foundation of China, which was also the largest funding source with regard to papers about laccase and pollutants or wastewater. The aforementioned funding source contributed to 13.67% of 1865 papers, followed by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which contributed funding to 2.57% of papers. Of the 10 top funding sources, both Asia and Europe had three funding sources, while the rest were two funding sources from both North America and South America. The number of collaborations remained an issue among organizations, with only 0.26% of 4165 organizations having collaborations.
Between 1978 and 2022, publications on laccase and pollutant or wastewater reached a total of 1865, of which 90.9% were research articles and the remaining 9.1% were review articles. The total number of identified papers is still significantly smaller compared to the 14,057 total papers that studied laccase (a search was conducted using the same term excluding the specific keywords used in this bibliometric analysis). This shows the dominance of experimental work on laccase and pollutants or wastewater. However, the top papers found in this present study (indicated by the number of citations) were mostly review papers. Whilst most papers specifically discussed laccase activity in degrading pollutants, a paper authored by Rodríguez Couto and Toca Herrera highlighted chitin and chitosan characterizations [31]. We also found that chitosan as the only biopolymer shown in the keyword networking analysis. Taken together, chitosan is the most studied polymeric support for laccase immobilization. This is due to the fact that chitosan has functional groups that can be manipulated for the immobilization reactions or involved interactions [48,49,50,51]. Moreover, chitosan could play a part in contaminant removal via the adsorption on the polymer surface [52,53,54].
A visual networking analysis of the keywords on papers published from 1978 revealed that biodegradation has the highest density, followed by immobilization, decolorization, and biosorption. This suggests that the research is dominated by the utility of non-isolated laccase for the wastewater treatment [55,56,57]. As mentioned previously, immobilization could enhance the removal efficiency whilst improving its working condition ranges and reusability [55,58,59,60]. Biosorption is a keyword usually used to explain the adsorption phenomenon on bio-based materials. Coconut and rice husks are among the growing substrates that have been reported to immobilize T. versicolor and could also perform biosorption [61,62,63].

5. Challenges and Future Prospects

To get an insight on the constrains of laccase-assisted wastewater treatment, we performed a literature search on review articles using the same previously used keyword combination, but the search was refined to only include those published between 2018 and 2023. Challenges and recommended topics for future research have been presented in Table 7. The high-costs of enzyme production along with its stability and reusability limit its application in wastewater treatment [64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]. Research on gene editing and molecular engineering could overcome the stability and improve the production yield of the enzyme [64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]. Using a low-cost solid substrate would also reduce the production cost [13,72,73,74]. Immobilizing laccase onto a supporting material could enhance the stability, reusability and contaminant removal performance [70,71,75,76]. However, laccase immobilization creates other challenges such as enzyme leakage, catalytic site blockage (hence reducing enzymatic activities), and additional production costs [64,71,75]. Therefore, it is important to consider the appropriate immobilization technique and the type of supporting materials. Another challenge in laccase research for contaminant removal is our lack of understanding regarding its catalytic degradation mechanisms, especially because the mechanism is dependent on the type of the contaminants. Screening the enzymatic activity against different pollutants could be assisted by an in silico approach [6,66,70,77].

6. Strengths and Limitations

Being the first study to research the bibliometric analysis on the study of laccase and pollutants or wastewater trends, this study used VosViewer to analyse the inputted data searched from the Scopus database, offering more accountability and objectivity. It is worth mentioning that we did not include book chapters, conference paper/reviews, editorial notes, erratum, letters, short surveys, or retracted documents. This study was also based on the Scopus database, and did not include other databases such as Web of Science (WoS). We also found difficulties in the visual networking analysis, including the incomplete name of affiliation in the visualization, an issue which cannot be resolved by the user manually.

7. Conclusions

Laccase utilization in degrading pollutants is mostly studied by scientists in China (22.3%) and India (14.8%). The leading journal publishing research about laccase utilization in wastewater treatment was Bioresource Technology. Environmental Science was the most reported subject area, indicating the urgency of laccase use on wastewater treatment. Laccase immobilization is on the research spotlight, where the high occurrence of the keyword ‘chitosan’ has been found. This research, however, was still lacking in terms of collaboration between organizations, which needed to be strengthened to further ensure the betterment in terms of treating wastewater or pollutants.
There are also several recommendations for the bibliometric analysis. Despite being user friendly, the visualization using VosViewer software restricts the user to editing the name in the presentation. In our case, we found the affiliation being presented with an incomplete name, and there was no option for manual editing. There should be a tool to analyze the quality of the paper rather than being based solely on the quantity. More importantly, the bibliometric analysis should be validated with a different approach, and in our case we used Biblioshiny.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, K.P., W.C. and M.I.; Investigation, K.P. and W.C.; Methodology, M.I.; Resources, K.P. and W.C.; Supervision, M.I.; Validation, S.N.A. and R.I.; Writing—original draft, W.C.; Writing—review & editing, K.P. and M.I. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Underlying data are made available by request to the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

Authors wish to extend their gratitude to Universitas Syiah Kuala for any kinds of support given during the preparation of this manuscript. Authors also appreciate the collaboration among researchers from the Innovative Sustainability Lab, PT. Biham Riset dan Edukasi—Indonesia.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References

  1. Tong, T.; Elimelech, M. The Global Rise of Zero Liquid Discharge for Wastewater Management: Drivers, Technologies, and Future Directions. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, 50, 6846–6855. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  2. Kataki, S.; Chatterjee, S.; Vairale, M.G.; Sharma, S.; Dwivedi, S.K. Concerns and strategies for wastewater treatment during COVID-19 pandemic to stop plausible transmission. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 2021, 164, 105156. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  3. Otolorin, G.R.; Oluwatobi, A.I.; Olufemi, O.T.; Esonu, D.O.; Dunka, H.I.; Adanu, W.A.; Danjuma, F.A.; Abiayi, D.C.; Adegoke, V.A.; Omoniwa, D.O. COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on the environment: A global perspective. Narra J. 2022, 2, e72. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  4. Dhama, K.; Patel, S.K.; Kumar, R.; Masand, R.; Rana, J.; Yatoo, M.I.; Tiwari, R.; Sharun, K.; Mohapatra, R.K.; Natesan, S.; et al. The role of disinfectants and sanitizers during COVID-19 pandemic: Advantages and deleterious effects on humans and the environment. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 28, 34211–34228. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  5. Ren, D.; Wang, Z.; Jiang, S.; Yu, H.; Zhang, S.; Zhang, X. Recent environmental applications of and development prospects for immobilized laccase: A review. Biotechnol. Genet. Eng. Rev. 2020, 36, 81–131. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  6. Barrios-Estrada, C.; de Jesús Rostro-Alanis, M.; Muñoz-Gutiérrez, B.D.; Iqbal, H.M.N.; Kannan, S.; Parra-Saldívar, R. Emergent contaminants: Endocrine disruptors and their laccase-assisted degradation—A review. Sci. Total Environ. 2018, 612, 1516–1531. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  7. Yoshida, H. Chemistry of lacquer (Urushi). J. Chem. Soc. Trans. 1883, 43, 472–486. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  8. Bertrand, G. The conversion of free latex to lacquer. Comptes Rendus De L’académie Des Sci. 1894, 118, 1215–1218. [Google Scholar]
  9. Dwivedi, U.N.; Singh, P.; Pandey, V.P.; Kumar, A. Structure-function relationship among bacterial, fungal and plant laccases. J. Mol. Catal. B Enzym. 2011, 68, 117–128. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  10. Claus, H. Laccases: Structure, reactions, distribution. Micron 2004, 35, 93–96. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  11. Endo, K.; Hayashi, Y.; Hibi, T.; Hosono, K.; Beppu, T.; Ueda, K. Enzymological Characterization of EpoA, a Laccase-Like Phenol Oxidase Produced by Streptomyces griseus. J. Biochem. 2003, 133, 671–677. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  12. Asgher, M.; Bhatti, H.N.; Ashraf, M.; Legge, R.L. Recent developments in biodegradation of industrial pollutants by white rot fungi and their enzyme system. Biodegradation 2008, 19, 771–783. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  13. Kumar, V.V.; Venkataraman, S.; Kumar, P.S.; George, J.; Rajendran, D.S.; Shaji, A.; Lawrence, N.; Saikia, K.; Rathankumar, A.K. Laccase production by Pleurotus ostreatus using cassava waste and its application in remediation of phenolic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-contaminated lignocellulosic biorefinery wastewater. Environ. Pollut. 2022, 309, 119729. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  14. Atilano-Camino, M.M.; Álvarez-Valencia, L.H.; García-González, A.; García-Reyes, R.B. Improving laccase production from Trametes versicolor using lignocellulosic residues as cosubstrates and evaluation of enzymes for blue wastewater biodegradation. J. Environ. Manag. 2020, 275, 111231. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  15. Ben Ali, W.; Chaduli, D.; Navarro, D.; Lechat, C.; Turbé-Doan, A.; Bertrand, E.; Faulds, C.B.; Sciara, G.; Lesage-Meessen, L.; Record, E.; et al. Screening of five marine-derived fungal strains for their potential to produce oxidases with laccase activities suitable for biotechnological applications. BMC Biotechnol. 2020, 20, 27. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  16. Kumar, A.; Chandra, R. Biodegradation and toxicity reduction of pulp paper mill wastewater by isolated laccase producing Bacillus cereus AKRC03. Clean. Eng. Technol. 2021, 4, 100193. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  17. El-Bendary, M.A.; Ezzat, S.M.; Ewais, E.A.; Al-Zalama, M.A. Optimization of spore laccase production by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens isolated from wastewater and its potential in green biodecolorization of synthetic textile dyes. Prep. Biochem. Biotechnol. 2021, 51, 16–27. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  18. Unuofin, J.O.; Okoh, A.I.; Nwodo, U.U. Recovery of laccase-producing gammaproteobacteria from wastewater. Biotechnol. Rep. 2019, 21, e00320. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  19. Motamedi, E.; Kavousi, K.; Sadeghian Motahar, S.F.; Reza Ghaffari, M.; Sheykh Abdollahzadeh Mamaghani, A.; Hosseini Salekdeh, G.; Ariaeenejad, S. Efficient removal of various textile dyes from wastewater by novel thermo-halotolerant laccase. Bioresour. Technol. 2021, 337, 125468. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  20. Zhao, L.H.; Ma, Q.Q.; Nie, F.; Chen, W.; Sun, H.J. Increasing laccase activity of white rot fungi by mutagenesis and treating papermaking wastewater. IOP Conf. Ser. Earth Environ. Sci. 2018, 191, 012053. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  21. Bu, T.; Yang, R.; Zhang, Y.; Cai, Y.; Tang, Z.; Li, C.; Wu, Q.; Chen, H. Improving decolorization of dyes by laccase from Bacillus licheniformis by random and site-directed mutagenesis. Peer J. 2020, 8, e10267. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  22. Kadam, A.A.; Sharma, B.; Shinde, S.K.; Ghodake, G.S.; Saratale, G.D.; Saratale, R.G.; Kim, D.-Y.; Sung, J.-S. Thiolation of Chitosan Loaded over Super-Magnetic Halloysite Nanotubes for Enhanced Laccase Immobilization. Nanomaterials 2020, 10, 2560. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  23. Hürmüzlü, R.; Okur, M.; Saraçoğlu, N. Immobilization of Trametes versicolor laccase on chitosan/halloysite as a biocatalyst in the Remazol Red RR dye. Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 2021, 192, 331–341. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  24. Aslam, S.; Asgher, M.; Khan, N.A.; Bilal, M. Immobilization of Pleurotus nebrodensis WC 850 laccase on glutaraldehyde cross-linked chitosan beads for enhanced biocatalytic degradation of textile dyes. J. Water Process. Eng. 2021, 40, 101971. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  25. Chen, Y.; Lin, M.; Zhuang, D. Wastewater treatment and emerging contaminants: Bibliometric analysis. Chemosphere 2022, 297, 133932. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  26. Mao, G.; Hu, H.; Liu, X.; Crittenden, J.; Huang, N. A bibliometric analysis of industrial wastewater treatments from 1998 to 2019. Environ. Pollut. 2021, 275, 115785. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  27. Chiari, W.; Damayanti, R.; Harapan, H.; Puspita, K.; Saiful, S.; Rahmi, R.; Rizki, D.R.; Iqhrammullah, M. Trend of Polymer Research Related to COVID-19 Pandemic: Bibliometric Analysis. Polymers 2022, 14, 3297. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  28. Haritash, A.K.; Kaushik, C.P. Biodegradation aspects of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): A review. J. Hazard. Mater. 2009, 169, 1–15. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  29. Busca, G.; Berardinelli, S.; Resini, C.; Arrighi, L. Technologies for the removal of phenol from fluid streams: A short review of recent developments. J. Hazard. Mater. 2008, 160, 265–288. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  30. Rodríguez Couto, S.; Toca Herrera, J.L. Industrial and biotechnological applications of laccases: A review. Biotechnol. Adv. 2006, 24, 500–513. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  31. Aranaz, I.; Mengíbar, M.; Harris, R.; Paños, I.; Miralles, B.; Acosta, N.; Galed, G.; Heras, Á. Functional characterization of chitin and chitosan. Curr. Chem. Biol. 2009, 3, 203–230. [Google Scholar]
  32. McMullan, G.; Meehan, C.; Conneely, A.; Kirby, N.; Robinson, T.; Nigam, P.; Banat, I.; Marchant, R.; Smyth, W. Microbial decolourisation and degradation of textile dyes. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2001, 56, 81–87. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  33. Durán, N.; Esposito, E. Potential applications of oxidative enzymes and phenoloxidase-like compounds in wastewater and soil treatment: A review. Appl. Catal. B Environ. 2000, 28, 83–99. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  34. Durán, N.; Rosa, M.A.; D’Annibale, A.; Gianfreda, L. Applications of laccases and tyrosinases (phenoloxidases) immobilized on different supports: A review. Enzym. Microb. Technol. 2002, 31, 907–931. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  35. Abadulla, E.; Tzanov, T.; Costa, S.; Robra, K.-H.; Cavaco-Paulo, A.; Gübitz, G.M. Decolorization and detoxification of textile dyes with a laccase from Trametes hirsuta. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2000, 66, 3357–3362. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  36. Srinivasan, A.; Viraraghavan, T. Decolorization of dye wastewaters by biosorbents: A review. J. Environ. Manag. 2010, 91, 1915–1929. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  37. Harms, H.; Schlosser, D.; Wick, L.Y. Untapped potential: Exploiting fungi in bioremediation of hazardous chemicals. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 2011, 9, 177–192. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  38. van Eck, N.J.; Waltman, L. Visualizing Bibliometric Networks. In Measuring Scholarly Impact: Methods and Practice; Ding, Y., Rousseau, R., Wolfram, D., Eds.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, Switzerland, 2014; pp. 285–320. [Google Scholar]
  39. Khatami, S.H.; Vakili, O.; Movahedpour, A.; Ghesmati, Z.; Ghasemi, H.; Taheri-Anganeh, M. Laccase: Various types and applications. Biotechnol. Appl. Biochem. 2022. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  40. Bento, I.; Silva, C.S.; Chen, Z.; Martins, L.O.; Lindley, P.F.; Soares, C.M. Mechanisms underlying dioxygen reduction in laccases. Structural and modelling studies focusing on proton transfer. BMC Struct. Biol. 2010, 10, 28. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  41. Jones, S.M.; Solomon, E.I. Electron transfer and reaction mechanism of laccases. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 2015, 72, 869–883. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  42. Chivukula, M.; Renganathan, V. Phenolic Azo Dye Oxidation by Laccase from Pyricularia oryzae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 1995, 61, 4374–4377. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] [Green Version]
  43. Ariaeenejad, S.; Motamedi, E.; Salekdeh, G.H. Highly efficient removal of dyes from wastewater using nanocellulose from quinoa husk as a carrier for immobilization of laccase. Bioresour. Technol. 2022, 349, 126833. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  44. Peng, J.; Wu, E.; Lou, X.; Deng, Q.; Hou, X.; Lv, C.; Hu, Q. Anthraquinone removal by a metal-organic framework/polyvinyl alcohol cryogel-immobilized laccase: Effect and mechanism exploration. Chem. Eng. J. 2021, 418, 129473. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  45. Yavaşer, R.; Karagözler, A.A. Laccase immobilized polyacrylamide-alginate cryogel: A candidate for treatment of effluents. Process Biochem. 2021, 101, 137–146. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  46. Tišma, M.; Šalić, A.; Planinić, M.; Zelić, B.; Potočnik, M.; Šelo, G.; Bucić-Kojić, A. Production, characterisation and immobilization of laccase for an efficient aniline-based dye decolourization. J. Water Process Eng. 2020, 36, 101327. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  47. AlRyalat, S.A.S.; Malkawi, L.W.; Momani, S.M. Comparing bibliometric analysis using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. JoVE J. Vis. Exp. 2019, e58494. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  48. Iqhrammullah, M.; Mustafa, I. The application of chitosan modified polyurethane foam adsorbent. Rasāyan J. Chem. 2019, 12, 494–501. [Google Scholar]
  49. Kadam, A.A.; Jang, J.; Jee, S.C.; Sung, J.-S.; Lee, D.S. Chitosan-functionalized supermagnetic halloysite nanotubes for covalent laccase immobilization. Carbohydr. Polym. 2018, 194, 208–216. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  50. Asgher, M.; Noreen, S.; Bilal, M. Enhancing catalytic functionality of Trametes versicolor IBL-04 laccase by immobilization on chitosan microspheres. Chem. Eng. Res. Des. 2017, 119, 1–11. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  51. Zheng, F.; Cui, B.-K.; Wu, X.-J.; Meng, G.; Liu, H.-X.; Si, J. Immobilization of laccase onto chitosan beads to enhance its capability to degrade synthetic dyes. Int. Biodeterior. Biodegrad. 2016, 110, 69–78. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  52. Rahmi; Julinawati; Nina, M.; Fathana, H.; Iqhrammullah, M. Preparation and characterization of new magnetic chitosan-glycine-PEGDE (Fe3O4/Ch-G-P) beads for aqueous Cd(II) removal. J. Water Process Eng. 2022, 45, 102493. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  53. Rahmi, R.; Lelifajri, L.; Iqbal, M.; Fathurrahmi, F.; Jalaluddin, J.; Sembiring, R.; Farida, M.; Iqhrammullah, M. Preparation, Characterization and Adsorption Study of PEDGE-Cross-linked Magnetic Chitosan (PEDGE-MCh) Microspheres for Cd2+ Removal. Arab. J. Sci. Eng. 2022, 1–9. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  54. Fathana, H.; Iqhrammullah, M.; Rahmi, R.; Adlim, M.; Lubis, S. Tofu wastewater-derived amino acids identification using LC-MS/MS and their uses in the modification of chitosan/TiO2 film composite. Chem. Data Collect. 2021, 35, 100754. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  55. Nadaroglu, H.; Mosber, G.; Gungor, A.A.; Adıguzel, G.; Adiguzel, A. Biodegradation of some azo dyes from wastewater with laccase from Weissella viridescens LB37 immobilized on magnetic chitosan nanoparticles. J. Water Process Eng. 2019, 31, 100866. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  56. Reda, F.M.; Hassan, N.S.; El-Moghazy, A.-N. Decolorization of synthetic dyes by free and immobilized laccases from newly isolated strain Brevibacterium halotolerans N11 (KY883983). Biocatal. Agric. Biotechnol. 2018, 15, 138–145. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  57. Navada, K.K.; Kulal, A. Enzymatic degradation of chloramphenicol by laccase from Trametes hirsuta and comparison among mediators. Int. Biodeterior. Biodegrad. 2019, 138, 63–69. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  58. Khakshoor, M.; Makhdoumi, A.; Asoodeh, A.; Hosseindokht, M.R. Co-immobilized spore laccase/TiO2 nanoparticles in the alginate beads enhance dye removal by two-step decolorization. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 28, 6099–6110. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  59. Salami, F.; Habibi, Z.; Yousefi, M.; Mohammadi, M. Covalent immobilization of laccase by one pot three component reaction and its application in the decolorization of textile dyes. Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 2018, 120, 144–151. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  60. Rajhans, G.; Sen, S.K.; Barik, A.; Raut, S. De-colourization of textile effluent using immobilized Geotrichum candidum: An insight into mycoremediation. Lett. Appl. Microbiol. 2021, 72, 445–457. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  61. Madrigal-Zúñiga, K.; Ruiz-Hidalgo, K.; Chin-Pampillo, J.S.; Masís-Mora, M.; Castro-Gutiérrez, V.; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, C.E. Fungal bioaugmentation of two rice husk-based biomixtures for the removal of carbofuran in on-farm biopurification systems. Biol. Fertil. Soils 2016, 52, 243–250. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  62. Ruíz-Hidalgo, K.; Masís-Mora, M.; Barbieri, E.; Carazo-Rojas, E.; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, C.E. Ecotoxicological analysis during the removal of carbofuran in fungal bioaugmented matrices. Chemosphere 2016, 144, 864–871. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  63. Ruiz-Hidalgo, K.; Chin-Pampillo, J.S.; Masís-Mora, M.; Carazo-Rojas, E.; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, C.E. Optimization of a fungally bioaugmented biomixture for carbofuran removal in on-farm biopurification systems. Water Air Soil Pollut. 2016, 227, 1–14. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  64. Sutaoney, P.; Pandya, S.; Gajarlwar, D.; Joshi, V.; Ghosh, P. Feasibility and potential of laccase-based enzyme in wastewater treatment through sustainable approach: A review. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2022, 29, 86499–86527. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  65. Morsi, R.; Bilal, M.; Iqbal, H.M.N.; Ashraf, S.S. Laccases and peroxidases: The smart, greener and futuristic biocatalytic tools to mitigate recalcitrant emerging pollutants. Sci. Total Environ. 2020, 714, 136572. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  66. Arregui, L.; Ayala, M.; Gómez-Gil, X.; Gutiérrez-Soto, G.; Hernández-Luna, C.E.; Herrera de los Santos, M.; Levin, L.; Rojo-Domínguez, A.; Romero-Martínez, D.; Saparrat, M.C.N.; et al. Laccases: Structure, function, and potential application in water bioremediation. Microb. Cell Factories 2019, 18, 200. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
  67. Singh, A.K.; Bilal, M.; Iqbal, H.M.N.; Meyer, A.S.; Raj, A. Bioremediation of lignin derivatives and phenolics in wastewater with lignin modifying enzymes: Status, opportunities and challenges. Sci. Total Environ. 2021, 777, 145988. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  68. Paraschiv, G.; Ferdes, M.; Ionescu, M.; Moiceanu, G.; Zabava, B.S.; Dinca, M.N. Laccases—Versatile Enzymes Used to Reduce Environmental Pollution. Energies 2022, 15, 1835. [Google Scholar]
  69. Deska, M.; Kończak, B. Immobilized fungal laccase as “green catalyst” for the decolourization process–State of the art. Process Biochem. 2019, 84, 112–123. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  70. Zdarta, J.; Jankowska, K.; Bachosz, K.; Degórska, O.; Kaźmierczak, K.; Nguyen, L.N.; Nghiem, L.D.; Jesionowski, T. Enhanced Wastewater Treatment by Immobilized Enzymes. Curr. Pollut. Rep. 2021, 7, 167–179. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  71. Datta, S.; Veena, R.; Samuel, M.S.; Selvarajan, E. Immobilization of laccases and applications for the detection and remediation of pollutants: A review. Environ. Chem. Lett. 2021, 19, 521–538. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  72. Viswanath, B.; Rajesh, B.; Janardhan, A.; Kumar, A.P.; Narasimha, G. Fungal Laccases and Their Applications in Bioremediation. Enzym. Res. 2014, 2014, 163242. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] [Green Version]
  73. Mäkelä, M.R.; Tuomela, M.; Hatakka, A.; Hildén, K. Fungal Laccases and Their Potential in Bioremediation Applications. In Laccases in Bioremediation and Waste Valorisation; Schlosser, D., Ed.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, Switzerland, 2020; pp. 1–25. [Google Scholar]
  74. Noman, E.; Al-Gheethi, A.A.; Talip, B.A.; Mohamed, R.; Kassim, A.H. Oxidative enzymes from newly local strain Aspergillus iizukae EAN605 using pumpkin peels as a production substrate: Optimized production, characterization, application and techno-economic analysis. J. Hazard. Mater. 2020, 386, 121954. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  75. Bilal, M.; Iqbal, H.M.N. Persistence and impact of steroidal estrogens on the environment and their laccase-assisted removal. Sci. Total Environ. 2019, 690, 447–459. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  76. Zhou, W.; Zhang, W.; Cai, Y. Laccase immobilization for water purification: A comprehensive review. Chem. Eng. J. 2021, 403, 126272. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  77. Mora-Gamboa, M.P.C.; Rincón-Gamboa, S.M.; Ardila-Leal, L.D.; Poutou-Piñales, R.A.; Pedroza-Rodríguez, A.M.; Quevedo-Hidalgo, B.E. Impact of Antibiotics as Waste, Physical, Chemical, and Enzymatical Degradation: Use of Laccases. Molecules 2022, 27, 4436. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  78. Morsy, S.A.G.Z.; Ahmad Tajudin, A.; Ali, M.S.M.; Shariff, F.M. Current Development in Decolorization of Synthetic Dyes by Immobilized Laccases. Front. Microbiol. 2020, 11, 572309. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
Ijerph 20 00308 g001 550
Figure 1. Flowchart of included studies on laccase utilization in wastewater treatment.
Figure 1. Flowchart of included studies on laccase utilization in wastewater treatment.
Ijerph 20 00308 g001
Ijerph 20 00308 g002 550
Figure 2. Publication trend of laccase research on pollutant or wastewater.
Figure 2. Publication trend of laccase research on pollutant or wastewater.
Ijerph 20 00308 g002
Ijerph 20 00308 g003 550
Figure 3. (a) Network visualization of authors’ co-authorship (weights: documents). (b) Overlay visualization of authors’ co-authorship in 1978–2022 (weights: documents; scores: average publications per year).
Figure 3. (a) Network visualization of authors’ co-authorship (weights: documents). (b) Overlay visualization of authors’ co-authorship in 1978–2022 (weights: documents; scores: average publications per year).
Ijerph 20 00308 g003
Ijerph 20 00308 g004 550
Figure 4. (a) Network visualization of organizations’ co-authorship (weights: documents). (b) Overlay visualization of organizations’ co-authorship in 1978–2022 (weights: documents; scores: average publications per year). Only connected organizations were shown.
Figure 4. (a) Network visualization of organizations’ co-authorship (weights: documents). (b) Overlay visualization of organizations’ co-authorship in 1978–2022 (weights: documents; scores: average publications per year). Only connected organizations were shown.
Ijerph 20 00308 g004
Ijerph 20 00308 g005 550
Figure 5. (a) Network Visualization of countries’ co-authorship (weights: documents). (b) Overlay visualization of countries’ co-authorship in 1978–2022 (weights: documents; scores: average publications per year).
Figure 5. (a) Network Visualization of countries’ co-authorship (weights: documents). (b) Overlay visualization of countries’ co-authorship in 1978–2022 (weights: documents; scores: average publications per year).
Ijerph 20 00308 g005
Ijerph 20 00308 g006 550
Figure 6. (a) Network Visualization of keywords’ co-occurrences (weights: occurrences). (b) Overlay visualization of keywords’ co-occurrences in 2002–2022 (weights: occurrences; scores: average publications per year). (c) Density visualization of keywords’ co-occurrences (weights: occurrences).
Figure 6. (a) Network Visualization of keywords’ co-occurrences (weights: occurrences). (b) Overlay visualization of keywords’ co-occurrences in 2002–2022 (weights: occurrences; scores: average publications per year). (c) Density visualization of keywords’ co-occurrences (weights: occurrences).
Ijerph 20 00308 g006
Table
Table 1. Top 10 subject areas related to laccase-assisted wastewater treatment studies.
Table 1. Top 10 subject areas related to laccase-assisted wastewater treatment studies.
RankSubject AreaNumber of Papers
1Environmental Science1052
2Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology581
3Chemical Engineering561
4Immunology and Microbiology445
5Chemistry350
6Energy188
7Agricultural and Biological Sciences172
8Engineering160
9Medicine144
10Materials Science140
Table
Table 2. Top 10 journals publishing articles related to laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
Table 2. Top 10 journals publishing articles related to laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
RankJournalNumber of PapersNumber of Citations
1Bioresource Technology1086984
2Journal of Hazardous Materials957042
3Chemosphere894157
4Environmental Science And Pollution Research491153
5Science of The Total Environment472670
6International Biodeterioration and Biodegradation382230
7Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology352201
8Journal of Environmental Management352076
9Enzyme and Microbial Technology302801
10Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety27631
Table
Table 3. Top 10 organizations working on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
Table 3. Top 10 organizations working on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
RankOrganizationCountryNumber of Papers
1Shivaji UniversityIndia147
2Jiangnan UniversityChina95
3Tianjin UniversityChina92
4Hunan UniversityChina85
5Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaSpain79
6University of WollongongAustralia62
7Université du QuébecCanada61
8Poznan University of TechnologyPoland60
8Tehran University of Medical SciencesIran60
10Wuhan University of Science and TechnologyChina58
Table
Table 4. Top 10 countries of the authors’ affiliation of published articles reporting on laccase–assisted wastewater treatment.
Table 4. Top 10 countries of the authors’ affiliation of published articles reporting on laccase–assisted wastewater treatment.
RankCountryNumber of PapersCitations
1China41611,579
2India27613,240
3Spain16210,551
4United States1125039
5Italy1046666
6Canada935161
7Mexico833249
8Brazil703196
9France682396
10South Korea672824
Table
Table 5. Top 10 funding sources for laccase–assisted wastewater treatment studies.
Table 5. Top 10 funding sources for laccase–assisted wastewater treatment studies.
RankFunding SourceNumber of Papers
1National Natural Science Foundation of China255
2Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada48
3European Regional Development Fund41
4Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología39
5Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico36
6University Grants Commission35
7European Commission34
8Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities30
9Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior29
10Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad29
Table
Table 6. Top 10 most cited papers reporting on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
Table 6. Top 10 most cited papers reporting on laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
RankTitleAuthor(s)YearCitationsRef.
1Biodegradation aspects of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): A reviewA.K. Haritash & C.P. Kaushik20092072[28]
2Technologies for the removal of phenol from fluid streams: A short review of recent developmentsG. Busca, S. Berardinelli, C. Resini, & L. Arrighi20081046[29]
3Industrial and biotechnological applications of laccases: A reviewS.R. Couto & J.L.T. Herrera20061030[30]
4Functional characterization of chitin and chitosanS. Rodríguez Couto & J.L. Toca Herrera2009894[31]
5Microbial decolourisation and degradation of textile dyesG. McMullan, C. Meehan, A. Conneely, N. Kirby, T. Robinson, P. Nigam, I. Banat, R. Marchant, & W. Smyth2001751[32]
6Potential applications of oxidative enzymes and phenoloxidase-like compounds in wastewater and soil treatment: A reviewN. Durán & E. Esposito2000734[33]
7Applications of laccases and tyrosinases (phenoloxidases) immobilized on different supports: A reviewN. Durán, M. A. Rosa, A. D’Annibale, & L. Gianfreda2002667[34]
8Decolorization and detoxification of textile dyes with a laccase from Trametes hirsutaE. Abadulla, T. Tzanov, S. Costa, K-H. Robra, A. Cavaco-Paulo, & G. M. Gübitz2000638[35]
9Decolorization of dye wastewaters by biosorbents: A reviewA.V. Srinivasan & T. Viraraghavan2010622[36]
10Untapped potential: Exploiting fungi in bioremediation of hazardous chemicalsH. Harms, D. Schlosser, & L.Y. Wick2011589[37]
Table
Table 7. Challenges and future research agenda for laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
Table 7. Challenges and future research agenda for laccase-assisted wastewater treatment.
ChallengeProposed Research TopicRefs.
  • High-cost enzyme production
  • Low enzyme stability and reusability
  • Mutant strains
  • DNA recombination
  • Low-cost substrate
  • Increasing the production yield
  • Site-directed mutagenesis
  • Glycosylation modification
[64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]
  • Unclear catalytic mechanism due to a large variety of contaminants
  • Elucidation of the catalytic mechanism
  • In silico methods
[6,66,70,77]
  • Harsh wastewater treatment operating conditions
  • Bioreactor design
  • Immobilization
[69,70]
  • High-cost of immobilization
  • Low-cost supports
[6,78]
  • Reduced enzyme activity after immobilization
  • Selecting and developing immobilization techniques and supporting materials
  • Immobilization with adsorbent and photocatalyst
[64,71,75]
  • Improving contaminant removal performance
  • Immobilization with adsorbent and photocatalyst
  • Combination with nanoparticle
  • Employing magnetic materials
  • Gene editing and mutagenesis
[70,71,75,76]
  • Enzyme leakage
  • Selecting and developing immobilization techniques and supporting materials
[78]
Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Puspita, K.; Chiari, W.; Abdulmadjid, S.N.; Idroes, R.; Iqhrammullah, M. Four Decades of Laccase Research for Wastewater Treatment: Insights from Bibliometric Analysis. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 308. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010308

AMA Style

Puspita K, Chiari W, Abdulmadjid SN, Idroes R, Iqhrammullah M. Four Decades of Laccase Research for Wastewater Treatment: Insights from Bibliometric Analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2023; 20(1):308. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010308

Chicago/Turabian Style

Puspita, Kana, Williams Chiari, Syahrun N. Abdulmadjid, Rinaldi Idroes, and Muhammad Iqhrammullah. 2023. "Four Decades of Laccase Research for Wastewater Treatment: Insights from Bibliometric Analysis" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20, no. 1: 308. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010308

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Back to TopTop