Marine Actinobacteria Bioflocculant: A Storehouse of Unique Biotechnological Resources for Wastewater Treatment and Other Applications
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Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban 4000, South Africa
2
Department of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin 002, Nigeria
3
UFS/TIA Saense Platform, Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein 9301, South Africa
4
Biocatalysis and Technical Biology Research Group, Institute of Biomedical and Microbial Biotechnology, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town 7535, South Africa
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(21), 7671; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10217671
Received: 22 September 2020 / Revised: 15 October 2020 / Accepted: 16 October 2020 / Published: 30 October 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wastewater Treatment Technologies)
The bioactive compounds produced by actinobacteria have played a major role in antimicrobials, bioremediation, biofuels, enzymes, and anti-cancer activities. Biodegradable microbial flocculants have been produced by bacteria, algae, and fungi. Microbial bioflocculants have also attracted biotechnology importance over chemical flocculants as a result of degradability and environmentally friendly attributes they possess. Though, freshwater actinobacteria flocculants have been explored in bioflocculation. Yet, there is a paucity of information on the application of actinobacteria flocculants isolated from the marine environment. Similarly, marine habitats that supported the biodiversity of actinobacteria strains in the field of biotechnology have been underexplored in bioflocculation. Hence, this review reiterates the need to optimize culture conditions and other parameters that affect bioflocculant production by using a response surface model or artificial neural network.