The expansion of fungal organisms in environmental biotechnology.

Fungal organisms hold vital roles in ecosystem processes. Despite their intricate entanglement with most life on earth and their powerful metabolic capacities, they remain under-represented in environmental biotechnology. The interest in applying fungal biotechnologies to different environments is growing, as light is shed on their versatile potential.

New directions in biological nitrogen removal and recovery from wastewater.

This review summarizes strategies for biological nitrogen removal (BNR) and recovery from wastewater. The most commonly used BNR technology nitrification/denitrification is also the most energy intensive, even though there are lower energy options, including nitritation/denitritation and more efficient partial nitritation/Anammox; the latter is well demonstrated for side-stream treatment and progressing toward mainstream applications. Nitrogen recovery can be done through cell assimilation with phototrophs, but bottlenecks with solids separation and space requirements limit applications to tertiary treatment.