Prosopis juliflora peroxidases for phenol remediation from industrial wastewater — An innovative practice for environmental sustainability

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Prosopis juliflora or Mesquite, one of the world's worst invaders, yields low-purity peroxidases (MPx), which remove phenols from the wastewater of textile and leather industries. Within 30 min, MPx removes phenols from wastewater of the textile industry (94.95 ± 0.82%) and leather industry (91.49 ± 1.54%). After treatment with MPx, the residual phenol in the wastewater remained much below the environmentally safe limit outlined by the USEPA. For maximum phenols removal, MPx requires 4–6 mM H2O2, whereas Horseradish peroxidase (HRP), a commercially available and the most widely used peroxidase, uses 8 mM H2O2. MPx perform better than (HRP), in parameters such as phenol removal efficiency, need of chemical additive, stability, and time of preparation. MPx, therefore, offer an economically viable method for wastewater treatment and also obviate several challenges of using purified enzymes. Extraction from the non-edible invasive plant is an added benefit as it does not require specific cultivation conditions and address the concern of competing with food resource. Further, using an invasive plant as a bioresource will help in the management of aggressive invaders like P. julifora. We report a procedure to prepare MPx with a lesser number of chemicals and use it with a low concentration of H2O2 for remediation of phenol from industrial wastewater. MPx, with high phenol removal capacity, shows the potential to act as an economic but effective alternative to purified peroxidases for environmental remediation withstanding the principles of the circular economy.