Applications of Bioremediation in Biomedical Waste Management: Current and Future Prospects

Khan, Mohd Sajjad Ahmad

doi:10.1590/1678-4324-2024230161

Mohd Sajjad Ahmad Khan ^**Correspondence: mskhan@iau.edu.sa; khanmsa@hotmail.com; Tel.: +966543438619 (M.S.A.K.).

Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Deanship of Preparatory Year and Supporting Studies, Department of Basic Sciences, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6045-9599

*Correspondence: mskhan@iau.edu.sa; khanmsa@hotmail.com; Tel.: +966543438619 (M.S.A.K.).

Editor-in-Chief:

Alexandre Rasi Aoki

Associate Editor:

Marcos Pileggi

Conflicts of Interest:

Authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures (2)
Tables (3)

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Figure 1
The process of bioremediation of organic pollutants and heavy metals by microorganisms.

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Figure 2
Mechanistic approach of microorganisms in remediating recalcitrant pollutants including radionuclides.

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Table 1
Effect of unused drugs and their ingredients on to the humans and fauna (Source: [¹²12 Rajan R, Robin DT, Vandanarani M. Biomedical waste management in Ayurveda hospitals e current practices and future prospectives. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2019;10(3):214-21.,²²22 Gautam V, Thapar R, Sharma M. Biomedical waste management: Incineration vs. environmental safety. Indian J Med Microbiol. 2010 Jul-Sep;28(3):191-2.

23 Mathur P, Patan S, Shobhawat AS. Need of biomedical waste management system in hospitals - An emerging issue - A Review. Curr World Environ. 2012;7(1):117-24.

24 Kumar A, Duggal S, Gur R, Rongpharpi S, Sagar S, Rani M, et al. Safe transportation of biomedical waste in a health care institution. Indian J Med Microbiol. 2015 Jul-Sep;33(3):383-6.

25 Suresh Kumar A, Muthukannan M, Kanniga Devi R, Arunkumar K, Chithambar Ganesh A. Reduction of hazardous incinerated bio-medical waste ash and its environmental strain by utilizing in green concrete. Water Sci Technol. 2021;84(10-11): 2780-92.-²⁶26 Boxall AB. The environmental side effects of medication. EMBO Rep. 2004;5(12):1110-6.]).

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Table 2
Comparison of bioremediation with other techniques (Source: [¹1 Dyson C, Kumar SN, Samuel AM, Devipriya HB, Midhila M. S. Study of bioremediation on hospital plastic waste management. Int J Manag Technol Eng. 2018 Dec;8(12):678-86.,⁴⁶46 Sharma I. Bioremediation techniques for polluted environment: Concept, advantages, limitations, and prospects. In: Trace metals in the Environment - New approaches and recent advances. IntechOpen. 2021.

47 Trivedi R. Biomedical waste management, meaning, methods of disposal, and scope by handling rules: A Review. Biomed J Sci & Tech Res. 2022;43(5):35002-5.-⁴⁸48 Yadav AN, Suyal DC, Kour D, Rajput VD, Rastegari AA, Singh J. Bioremediation and waste management for environmental sustainability. J Appl Biol Biotechnol. 2022;10 (Suppl 2):1-5.]).

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Table 3
List of various applications of phytoremediation process (source: [³3 Isaura MM, Jorge ME, Oscar CC, Conacyt C, Ingeniería F De, Autónoma U. Hospital radioactive waste treatment by phytoremediation. 2017 Jun;8(3):4377-80.,³⁹39 Raklami A, Meddich A, Oufdou K, Baslam M. Plants-Microorganisms-Based bioremediation for heavy metal cleanup: Recent developments, phytoremediation techniques, regulation mechanisms, and molecular responses. Int J Mol Sci. 2022 May;23(9):5031.,⁴¹41 Truu J, Truu M, Espenberg M, Nolvak H, Juhanson J. Phytoremediation and plant-assisted bioremediation in soil and treatment wetlands: A review. Open Biotechnol J. 2015 Jun;9(1):85-95.,⁹⁴94 Shikha D, Singh PK. In situ phytoremediation of heavy metal-contaminated soil and groundwater: a green inventive approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res. 2021;28:4104-24. .]).

Active pharmaceutical ingredient	Known pharmacology in target organisms	Potential harmful effects on non- target organisms
Fluoxetine	Sexual dysfunction in human	Alters estradiol levels in fish
NSAIDs like diclofenac	Renal toxicity in human	Renal impairment in fish and birds, visceral gout, and death of vultures
Ethinyl estradiol	Feminization of males	Affecting fertility and development of fish, reptiles, and aquatic invertebrates
Cytotoxics	Anticancer	Reproductive toxicants and cytotoxic to fish and other aquatic species
Enrofloxacin and other antibiotics	“Growth promoters” in agriculture and poultry	Emergence of multidrug resistant strains of pathogenic organisms
Chlorpyrifos Atrazine	Pesticide	Increased susceptibility to Ambystoma tigrinum viral infection and increased larval mortality
Methyltestosterone	Synthetic steroid	reduced fecundity, oogenesis, spermatogenesis in snails
Cypermethrin	Ectoparasiticide	Impact on dung decomposition
Tylosin	Antibacterial	Impacts on the structure of soil microbial communities
Erythromycin, Tetracycline	Antibacterial	Inhibition of growth cyanobacteria and aquatic plants
Diazepam	Antianxiety drug	Inhibition in the ability of dissected polyps from the cnidarianHydra Vulgaristo regenerate a hypostome, tentacles and a foot

Methods	Eco friendliness	Temperature	Efficiency	Byproduct	Toxicity	Expense
Sewage/drains	Not ecofriendly as untreated waste may accumulate in environment	Relies on environmental temperature	Low efficiency due to production of micropollutants, stagnant waste poses risk of human health	Open dumping results in production of poisonous gases, and mutagenic substances	Infectious and toxic materials often lead to spread of diseases	Less expensive including transportation cost
Incineration/ autoclaving	Not ecofriendly as high heat is required	High temperature is used to carry out the process	High efficiency with disadvantages of producing ashes with metal contaminants, air borne products leads to foul air	Emission of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and ashes	Highly toxic material is being released	High installation cost
Chemical treatment	Not very ecofriendly as toxic chemicals might be required	Temperature requirement varies according to types of chemicals used	Medium efficiency with risk of chemical exposure to workers	Plastic bags, chemical oxides	Highly toxic chemicals are used	Not expensive
Irradiation	Not ecofriendly as radiation could leaked out to cause various diseases	High temperature in a controlled condition	Low efficiency with risk of radiation exposure to workers	Production of mutagenic substances	Less toxicity	Less expensive
Disposal/ landfill	Not ecofriendly as leachate could pollute ground water, release of harmful gases and danger of spreading epidemics	Very low temperature is needed	Medium efficiency with probability of disease transmission, polluting ground water or air.	Leachate, metals, glass, carbon dioxide, plastics	Toxicity relies on the landfill material	Less installation cost
Bioremediation	Ecofriendly being a natural and sustainable process. The treatment products are harmless cell biomass, water, and carbon dioxide	Needs less effort and could be carried out on site under natural environment	High efficiency with complete degradation of contaminants, no use of dangerous chemicals, and continuous site use.	No harmful byproducts, completely biodegradable material is produced like water, carbon dioxide and inorganic substances	No toxicity, conversion of harmful chemicals into water and harmless gases, contaminants are destroyed, not simply transferred to different environments	Simple, less labor intensive and cheap due to their natural role in the environment

Application	Description	Contaminants	Types of plants
Soils
Phytotransformation	Sorption, uptake, and transformation of contaminants	Organics, including nitroaromatics and chlorinated aliphatics	Trees and grasses
Rhizosphere biodegradation	Microbial biodegradation in the rhizosphere stimulated by plants	Organics, e.g., PAHs, petroleum hydrocarbons, TNT, pesticides	Grasses, alfalfa, many other species including trees
Phytostabilization	Stabilization of contaminants by binding, holding soils, and/or decreased leaching	Metals, organics	Various plants with deep or fibrous root systems
Phytoextraction	Uptake of contaminants from soil into roots or harvestable shoots	Metals, inorganics, radionuclides	Variety of natural and selected hyper accumulators, e.g., Thalaspi, Alyssum, Brassica
Water/groundwater
Rhizofiltration	Sorption of contaminants from aqueous solutions onto or into roots	Metals, radionuclides, hydrophobic organics	Aquatic plants [e.g., duckweed, pennywort], also Brassica, and sunflower
Hydraulic control plume capture/phytotrans	Removal of large volumes of water from groundwater and/or aquifers by trees	Inorganics, nutrients, chlorinated solvents	Poplar, willow trees
Phytovolatilization	Uptake and volatilization from soil water and groundwater; conversion of Se and Hg to volatile chemical species	Volatile organic compounds, Se, Hg	Trees for VOCs in groundwater, Brassica, grasses, wetlands plants for Se, Hg in soil/sediments
Vegetative Caps	Use of plants to retard leaching of hazardous compounds from landfills	Organics, inorganics, wastewater, landfill leachate	Trees such as poplar, plants such as alfalfa and grasses
Constructed wetlands	Use of plants as part of a constructed ecosystem to remediate contaminants from aqueous waste waters	Metals, acid mine drainage, industrial and municipal wastewater	Free-floating, emergent, or sub-mergent vegetation; reeds, cattails, bamboo

[1] *Correspondence: mskhan@iau.edu.sa; khanmsa@hotmail.com; Tel.: +966543438619 (M.S.A.K.).

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Applications of Bioremediation in Biomedical Waste Management: Current and Future Prospects

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Abstract