Immobilised-laccase bioreactors for wastewater treatment

Laccases have shown to be efficient biocatalysts for the removal of recalcitrant pollutants from wastewater. Thus, they catalyse the oxidation of a wide variety of organic compounds by reducing molecular oxygen to water. However, the use of free laccases holds several drawbacks such as poor reusability, high cost, low stability and sensibility to different denaturing agents that may occur in wastewater. Such drawbacks can be circumvented by immobilising laccase enzymes in/on solid carriers. Hence, during the last decades different approaches considering various techniques and solid carriers to immobilise laccase enzymes have been developed and tested for the removal of pollutants from wastewater. To scale up wastewater treatment bioprocesses, the immobilised laccases are placed in different reactor configurations.