‘Magic Mushrooms’ Saving Water
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
From making biofuels to eating up harmful plastics, fungi could help us build a greener planet.
Making paper green
Recycling paper is all well and good, but how we produce that paper has an environmental impact, too. According to the Unesco-IHE Institute for Water Education, making a single sheet of A4 uses up to an astonishing 13 litres of water. The fungi Trichoderma and Humicola speed up the process and thereby save water, according to the Advances in Enzyme Research journal and the Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences .
Cellulase enzymes speed up the process of making paper.
Curbing cotton contamination
Processing cotton isn’t all that environmentally friendly, but the Aspergillus fungus can make it greener. Research in The Mycota book series’ IndustrialApplications into fungal enzymes says that using catalase enzymes from the fungi can break down the excess bleach in the waste water from the process, thereby making it less harmful.
Aspergillus can remove bleach from the water used in cotton production.
Source: The Guardian
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Taxonomy
- Industrial Water Managment
- Environment
- Water Management
- Water Resource Management