Bioremediation of Textile Dyeing Effluent Using Algae - A Review

The textile industry is a substantial consumer of water and it produces enormous volumes of contaminated water: the most important contaminants are dyes and chemicals. Synthetic dyes have an adverse effect on aquatic ecosystem and their toxic substances have to be removed from the effluent before their discharging. Microbial processes for the treatment of textile wastewater have the advantage of being cost effective, environment friendly and producing less sludge. The mechanism of microbial decolourisation occurs from adsorption, enzymatic degradation or a combination of both. The reductase and oxidase enzymes are involved in the microbial degradation process. The goal of microbial treatment is to decolourise and detoxify the dye contaminated wastewater. Recent studies have been focused on the decolourisation or degradation of azo dyes using algae, yeast, fungi and bacteria. Biosorption is simply defined as the removal of substances from solution by biological material. Such substances can be organic, inorganic, gaseous and soluble or insoluble forms. Biosorption is a property of both living and dead organisms. It acts as an indicator for the removal of pollutant from wastewater because of its efficiency, simplicity, analogous operation to conventional ion exchange technology and availability of biomass. A vast number of low cost adsorbents are recommended for wastewater treatment because of their local availability, technical feasibility, engineering applicability and cost effectiveness. The low cost adsorbents are well perform in dye removal and widely used in industries not only minimize cost but also improve probability with maximum output. Biological decolourisation of textile dyeing effluent is receiving much concern due to cost effective and less regeneration by microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants. Algal based remediation technology can provide an excellent resolution for textile wastewater pollution problems. Current status of biological decolourisation and remediation of textile dyeing effluents deals with the most on purpose part on the effects of various parameters like pH, temperature and dye concentrations is briefly discussed in this article.