A state of the art review on the use of fungi in biofiltration to remove volatile hydrophobic pollutants.

The physical/chemical abatement of gas pollutants creates many technical problems, is costly and entails significant environmental impacts. Biological purification of off-gases is a cheap and ecologically safe way of neutralization of gas pollutants. Despite the recent advances, the main technological challenge nowadays is the purification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of hydrophobic character due to their low solubility in water. Among all known biological methods of air purification, the most cost-effective biodegradation of hydrophobic VOCs is conducted by biotrickling filters. In this context, fungi have gained an increasing interest in this field based on their ability to biodegrade hydrophobic VOCs. In addition, biotrickling filtration using fungi can support a superior hydrophobic VOC abatement when compared to the bacterial biofilters. This paper aims at reviewing the latest research results concerning biocatalytic activity of fungi and evaluating the possibilities of their practical application in biofiltration systems to remove hydrophobic VOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]