Recent Advances on Using Functional Materials to Increase the Pollutant Removal Capabilities of Microalgae and Bacteria: Especially for Their Symbiotic Systems

Purpose of Review

The purpose of this review is to summarize the current interactions between functional materials and microalgae, bacteria, and algal-bacterial symbioses in the environment, to analyze the mechanism of interaction between materials and the three, and to explore the development potential of functional materials in the application of algal-bacterial symbioses for better pollutant removal.

Recent Findings

Algal-bacterial symbioses were a more promising means of wastewater treatment, but the efficiency of the treatment needed to be enhanced. Pollutant removal relies mainly on oxidative decomposition nutrient uptake by algal-bacterial symbioses. Some functional materials enhanced the biomass of microalgae by supplementing them with trace elements for growth, regulating their photosynthesis (material conversion spectrum, light capture, and carbon sequestration), stimulating their metabolism, enhancing pigment accumulation, and lipid accumulation, thus indirectly removing pollutants. In addition, the hybrids formed by bacteria and light-absorbing materials were used in the algal-bacterial symbioses via performing artificial photosynthesis for indirect pollutant removal. Thus, the combination of materials with microalgae and bacteria has broader application prospects.

Summary

The introduction of functional materials increased the efficiency of algal-bacterial symbioses in treating pollutants, which was mainly facilitated by increasing microalgal biomass to convert pollutants to algal-bacterial symbioses. This paper reviewed the research process of algal-bacterial symbioses for pollutants treatment and investigated the reaction mechanism of materials with microalgae, bacteria, and algal-bacterial symbioses, respectively. Overall, this review focuses on the development trend of functional materials in algal-bacterial symbioses and provides a reference for their application in algal-bacterial symbiotic system for wastewater treatment.