Encapsulated fungi eat plastic and pull out toxic cadmium at once
Arshad I, Li J, Sajid S, Nabi F, Cao S
Phytoremediation
The plastic bits and metal contaminants washing into local ponds and creeks often team up to become harder to clean, and this fungus-and-sugarcane-waste capsule tackles both problems in one shot.
Researchers took fungi that can digest two common plastics (the kind used in bags and bottle caps) and wrapped them in a protective capsule made from chitosan and leftover sugarcane fiber. This coating let the fungi keep working even when toxic cadmium metal was also present, something that normally shuts down microbial cleanup crews. Over a month, the wrapped fungi ate away more than half of one plastic type's weight and also soaked up nearly half of the cadmium in the water.
Key Findings
Encapsulated fungal consortia achieved 53.81% weight loss for polyethylene and 39.14% for polypropylene over 30 days, far exceeding non-encapsulated controls
Key enzymes rose substantially in encapsulated systems, including catalase (2.02-2.31 U/mL), laccase (1.74-1.92 U/mL), and manganese peroxidase (1.85-1.87 U/mL), supporting oxidative breakdown of the plastics
The encapsulated systems removed 49.0% and 43.4% of cadmium from solution for the PE and PP treatments respectively, immobilizing the metal via adsorption and bioaccumulation
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists engineered fungal teams wrapped in a chitosan-sugarcane waste capsule that break down plastic pollution even when it's contaminated with toxic cadmium metal, offering a cheap way to clean up polluted waterways.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Integrated bioremediation of microplastics-cadmium co-contamination via chitosan-sugarcane residue encapsulated fungal consortia.
The co-occurrence of microplastics (MPs) and heavy metals in aquatic environments poses a complex challenge for MPs bioremediation, particularly when cadmium (Cd) adsorbs onto MPs surfaces and enha...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Ancient Amazonian forests were planted and tended by Indigenous farmers
Forests and fruits we romanticize as wild — including many plants now in our kitchens and gardens — may exist in their current abundance precisely because an...
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, perennial grass that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–7 m tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. Sugarcanes belong to the grass family, Poaceae, an economically impor...