Yeast Biomaterial for Environmental Remediation

Traces of heavy metals found in water resources, due to mining activities and e-waste discharge, pose a global threat. Conventional treatment processes fail to remove toxic heavy metals, such as lead, from drinking water in a resource-efficient manner when their initial concentrations are low.<br/>In this talk, we will present how by using a yeast biomaterial we can effectively remove trace lead from water via a rapid mass transfer process, achieving an uptake of up to 12 mg lead per gram of biomass in solutions with initial lead concentrations below 1 part per million. Furthermore, we will discuss our efforts on using advanced experimental and computational characterization techniques to investigate the lead adsorption mechanisms, and present our discovery that lead adsorption is linked to a significant increase in yeast cell wall stiffness. These findings open new opportunities for using environmentally friendly and abundant biomaterials for advanced water treatment targeting emerging contaminants.