An Eco-friendly Practice of Decontamination of Toxicants using Fungi

The advent of industrialization and urbanization has caused rapid production of various types of domestic, agricultural, medical and technological goods, such as different types of pesticides, herbicides, cyanotoxin, heavy metals, antibiotics, dyes, phthalates, etc. Production of these substances has led to the production of enormous amount of waste materials. Inappropriate discharge and uncontrolled drainage of these waste materials into the environment have caused their accumulation in the surrounding environment, causing serious health problems and destroying our ecosystem. Different methods such as physical, chemical and biological have been adopted to eliminate these waste materials. However, these methods are cost-effective and have some side effects. Hence, in this chapter, efforts have been made to understand the fungal enzymes involved in remediation processes, and their role and the mechanism of action of fungi have been depicted. Besides that, we have also discussed different categories of waste and their remediation using fungi, which is an eco-friendly biological approach to remediate toxic materials. 

Keywords: Contaminants, Detoxification , Fungal enzymes, Mycoremediation.