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<p>Heavy metals (HMs) are mostly toxic to all forms of life and are tenacious environmental pollutants. Rapid industrialization, urban development, and unsustainable agricultural implications lead to their accumulation in soil and water ecosystems, promoting serious ecological and health risks. In course of time, the growing global population, demand for food, water, energy, and technology have increased heavy metal-contaminated wastewater discharges. Conventional physicochemical treatment approaches, although widely applied, often suffer from limitations such as incomplete metal removal, significant energy requirement and cost effectiveness. Microorganisms such as bacteria, algae, and fungi demonstrate great efficiency in HM detoxification and degradation by virtue of their natural biological properties. These microorganisms have the capability to reduce toxic metal ions in their surroundings to non-toxic or fixed forms. The current review aims to critically assess the efficiency of individual bioremediation processes in microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, algae, and their combinatorial states like bacteria-algae, algae-fungi, and algae-algae consortia. A great deal of emphasis has been given to elucidate the mechanistic insights specific to consortia particularly mutualistic carbon/nutrient exchange, bioprecipitation, EPS-mediated capture, enzymatic transformation, adsorption/chelation and synergistic indirect effects. Moreover, the importance of interspecies interactions through metabolite transfer and signaling has been underlined in terms of system stability and remediation ability. Future research direction includes reactor-scale integration studies, modeling efforts, and the use of artificial intelligence/machine learning tools. Thus, engineered bacterial communities based on omics analysis can provide a basis to improve bioremediation strategies in terms of efficiency, stability, and sustainability for the remediation of HMs in wastewaters.</p> Graphical abstract <p>Release of different heavy metals in wastewater leads to their bioaccumulation in the food chain causing ecological imbalance and health hazards in humans. In order to bioremediate these toxic heavy metals from the wastewater, microbial consortium (comprising algae, fungi, and bacteria) may be beneficial as they work synergistically to detoxify metals into stable or less harmful forms through multiple bioremediation pathways; thus, providing a sustainable solution for heavy metal pollution management.</p> <p></p>

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Synergistic microbial consortia in the bioremediation of heavy metal-contaminated wastewater: mechanisms and sustainability perspectives

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月11日

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  • Arpita Chakraborty,
  • Priyajit Banerjee,
  • Nimai Chandra Saha,
  • Palash Kumar Pal

摘要

Heavy metals (HMs) are mostly toxic to all forms of life and are tenacious environmental pollutants. Rapid industrialization, urban development, and unsustainable agricultural implications lead to their accumulation in soil and water ecosystems, promoting serious ecological and health risks. In course of time, the growing global population, demand for food, water, energy, and technology have increased heavy metal-contaminated wastewater discharges. Conventional physicochemical treatment approaches, although widely applied, often suffer from limitations such as incomplete metal removal, significant energy requirement and cost effectiveness. Microorganisms such as bacteria, algae, and fungi demonstrate great efficiency in HM detoxification and degradation by virtue of their natural biological properties. These microorganisms have the capability to reduce toxic metal ions in their surroundings to non-toxic or fixed forms. The current review aims to critically assess the efficiency of individual bioremediation processes in microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, algae, and their combinatorial states like bacteria-algae, algae-fungi, and algae-algae consortia. A great deal of emphasis has been given to elucidate the mechanistic insights specific to consortia particularly mutualistic carbon/nutrient exchange, bioprecipitation, EPS-mediated capture, enzymatic transformation, adsorption/chelation and synergistic indirect effects. Moreover, the importance of interspecies interactions through metabolite transfer and signaling has been underlined in terms of system stability and remediation ability. Future research direction includes reactor-scale integration studies, modeling efforts, and the use of artificial intelligence/machine learning tools. Thus, engineered bacterial communities based on omics analysis can provide a basis to improve bioremediation strategies in terms of efficiency, stability, and sustainability for the remediation of HMs in wastewaters.

Graphical abstract

Release of different heavy metals in wastewater leads to their bioaccumulation in the food chain causing ecological imbalance and health hazards in humans. In order to bioremediate these toxic heavy metals from the wastewater, microbial consortium (comprising algae, fungi, and bacteria) may be beneficial as they work synergistically to detoxify metals into stable or less harmful forms through multiple bioremediation pathways; thus, providing a sustainable solution for heavy metal pollution management.