Fungal enzymes for environmental management

•Basidiomycetes produce enzymes useful to attack toxic persistent organic pollutants.•Mainly laccase and peroxidases are considered for water and soil decontaminations.•Bioreactor processes with immobilized enzymes for water purification are in tests.•Bioaugmentation and biostimulation use living fungi and their enzymes in situ.•Effects on ecosystem functions and local biodiversities are still largely unstudied.

Fungal ligninolytic enzymes have broad biotechnological applications. Particularly laccases and certain fungal class II peroxidases from white-rot basidiomycetes are considered in degradation of persistent organic pollutants. Promising processes with reusable immobilized laccases in special reactors have been developed up to pilot scale for degradation of pollutants in water. Bioremediation of chemically complex soils with their large indigenous microbial communities is more difficult. Living fungi and their enzymes are employed. Bioaugmentation, introduction of for example white-rots for enzyme production into a polluted soil, and biostimulation of suitable resident organisms by nutritional manipulations are strategies in degradation of pollutants in soil. Bioaugmentation has been successfully implemented on small scale for soils in biobeds and for specific materials such as olive mill wastes.

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