Abstract
Among pollution remediation technologies, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are genuinely efficient since they are based on the production of strong, non-selective oxidants, mainly hydroxyl radicals (·OH), by a set of physicochemical methods. The biological counterparts of AOPs, which may be referred to as advanced bio-oxidation processes (ABOPs), have begun to be investigated since the mechanisms of induction of ·OH production in fungi are known. To contribute to the development of ABOPs, advanced oxidation of a wide number of dyes by the white-rot fungus Pleurotus eryngii, via a quinone redox cycling (QRC) process based on Fenton's reagent formation, has been described for the first time. The fungus was incubated with 2,6-dimethoxy-1,4-benzoquinone (DBQ) and Fe(3+)-oxalate, with and without Mn(2+), leading to different ·OH production rates, around twice higher with Mn(2+). Thanks to this process, the degradative capacity of the fungus increased, not only oxidising dyes it was not otherwise able to, but also increasing the decolorization rate of 20 dyes by more than 7 times in Mn(2+) incubations. In terms of process efficacy, it is noteworthy that with Mn(2+) the degradation of the dyes reached values of 90-100% in 2-4 h, which are like those described in some AOPs based on the Fenton reaction.