Porous Eleocharis@MnPE Layered Hybrid for Synergistic Adsorption and Catalytic Biodegradation of Toxic Azo Dyes from Industrial Wastewater.

The effective treatment of industrial wastewater to protect fresh water reserves for the survival of life is a primary focus of current research. Herein a multicomponent Eleocharis-manganese peroxidase enzyme (Eleocharis@MnPE) layered hybrid with high surface area (1,200 m2/m3), with a strong synergistic adsorption-catalytic biodegradation (SACB), has been developed through a facile method. A combination of outer porous (Eleocharis) and inner catalytically active (MnPE) components of the hybrid resulted in highly efficient SACB system, evidenced by high removal rate of 15 kgm-3day-1 (100%) and complete degradation of toxic Orange II (OR) azo dye into non-toxic products (gases and weak acids). Eleocharis@MnPE layered hybrid efficiently degraded both OR in synthetic wastewater and also other azo dyes (red, pink and yellow dyes) present in three different textile industrial effluents. For the industrial effluents, these were evidenced by the color disappearance and reduction in biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and total organic carbon of up to 97%, 92% and 76%, respectively. Furthermore, reduced toxicity of treated wastewater was confirmed by decreased cell toxicity to 0.1%-1% and increased cell viability to 90%. We believe that designing a hybrid system with strong ability of SACB could be highly effective for industrial scale treatment of wastewater.