Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Bioremediation of plastics by the help of microbial tool: A way for control of plastic pollution

This review covers how bacteria and fungi can be used to break down plastic waste, including microplastics, through natural biological processes. Various microorganisms can degrade different types of plastics by producing specific enzymes, though the process is slow and depends on the plastic type and environmental conditions. While biological degradation shows promise for reducing microplastic pollution in soil and water, much more research is needed to make it effective enough to address the scale of the problem.

2023 Sustainable Chemistry for the Environment 37 citations
Article Tier 2

Microbial Bioremediation of Microplastics

This review examines microbial bioremediation of microplastics, covering the bacteria, fungi, and algae known to degrade different plastic polymers and the enzymes involved. Biological degradation of microplastics offers a potentially scalable approach to reducing plastic contamination in soil and aquatic environments.

2023 BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS eBooks 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Microbial remediation of microplastic-contaminated soil, focusing on mechanisms, benefits, and research gaps

This systematic review examines microbial bioremediation of microplastic-contaminated soils, covering the sources and distribution of soil microplastics, their physicochemical interactions with soil microbiomes, and the mechanisms by which soil-dwelling bacteria and fungi degrade plastic polymers.

2025 npj Emerging Contaminants 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Evidence on Potential Bioremediation of Microplastics from Soil Environment around the World

This review examines evidence for bioremediation of microplastics from soil environments, evaluating how plants, bacteria, fungi, and other organisms can help remove or break down plastic particles in terrestrial ecosystems. While soil is a primary sink for microplastics, biological approaches to soil cleanup remain underdeveloped compared to aquatic bioremediation research.

2023 ACS symposium series 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Biodegradation of Microplastics in Soil

This review examines how soil microorganisms, plants, and soil animals contribute to the biodegradation of microplastics, summarizing current methods and their influencing factors as more sustainable alternatives to conventional plastic waste management.

2022 Advances in transdisciplinary engineering 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Potential strategies for bioremediation of microplastic contaminated soil

Researchers reviewed emerging bioremediation strategies for removing microplastics from contaminated soil, highlighting the roles of plants, root-zone microbes, soil animals like earthworms, and specialized bacteria and fungi that can use enzymes to break down plastic polymers into harmless compounds. While genetic engineering of microbes shows promise for accelerating degradation, the review notes that real-world application at scale still requires significant research and development.

2024 Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 47 citations
Article Tier 2

Bioremediation of Microplastics by Microorganisms: Trends, Challenges, and Perspectives

This review examines how microorganisms can be used to break down microplastic pollution in water and soil through bioremediation, a process considered more environmentally friendly than chemical alternatives. Researchers summarized the various microbial mechanisms involved, including enzymatic degradation and biofilm formation on plastic surfaces. While the approach shows promise as a green solution, the study notes that significant challenges remain in scaling these methods for real-world environmental cleanup.

2024 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction effects and mechanisms of microorganisms and microplastics in soil environment

This review examines how microplastics and soil microorganisms interact: microplastics disrupt soil structure, reduce water retention, and impede plant root growth, while certain bacteria and fungi can colonize and partially degrade plastic particles through a multi-step process involving colonization, fragmentation, assimilation, and mineralization. Different polymer types (PE, PP, PS, PVC, PET) attract different microbial communities, and factors like temperature, moisture, and plastic additives affect degradation rates. Understanding these interactions is key to assessing long-term soil health impacts and developing microbial strategies to reduce plastic accumulation in agricultural soils.

2023 Research Square (Research Square)
Article Tier 2

Microbial Degradation of Micro‐Plastics

This review examines the role of naturally occurring microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and algae in degrading microplastics, discussing the enzymatic mechanisms involved, the species identified as effective plastic degraders, and the prospects for applying microbial degradation pathways in bioremediation strategies.

2022 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Harnessing bio and (Photo)catalysts for microplastics degradation and remediation in soil environment

This review examined biological and photocatalytic approaches for breaking down microplastics in soil, an area that has received far less attention than water-based solutions. The study highlights promising enzymes and light-activated catalysts that could degrade soil microplastics, and calls for more research using computational modeling to design better cleanup strategies for contaminated land.

2024 Journal of Environmental Management 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Biodegradation of Microplastics: Mechanisms, Challenges, and Future Prospects for Environmental Remediation

This review assesses microbial biodegradation as a strategy for reducing microplastic pollution, focusing on how bacteria and fungi break down common plastic polymers under various environmental conditions. Researchers found that while several microbial strains can degrade plastics like polyethylene and polystyrene, the process is generally slow and varies with temperature, pH, and available nutrients. The study identifies key challenges that must be overcome, including improving degradation rates, before biological approaches can be effective at environmental cleanup scales.

2025 Tropical Aquatic and Soil Pollution 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Microbe‐mediated biodegradation of microplastics from wastes

Researchers examined microbe-mediated biodegradation of microplastics from waste, reviewing bacterial and fungal species capable of breaking down various plastic polymers and discussing enzymatic mechanisms that could be harnessed for bioremediation strategies.

2023 Water and Environment Journal 13 citations
Article Tier 2

Microbial Biodegradation of Plastics and Microplastics: Enzymatic Mechanisms, Biotechnological Applications, and Ecotoxicological Perspectives

This review examined the enzymatic mechanisms by which microorganisms degrade plastics and microplastics, covering biotechnological applications and ecotoxicological perspectives. Researchers found that certain bacterial and fungal enzymes can break down persistent plastic polymers, positioning microbial biodegradation as a promising sustainable remediation approach, though scalability and environmental deployment remain challenges.

2025 Environmental Toxicology and Ecology 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Effect of microplastics on soil microbial community and microbial degradation of microplastics in soil: A review

This review examines how microplastics affect soil microbial communities and the potential for microbes to degrade plastic particles in soil environments. The study highlights that soil acts as a major sink for microplastics from sources like sewage sludge, agricultural mulch, and wastewater, and identifies key knowledge gaps including the need for better monitoring of microplastic sources and exploration of microbial biodegradation potential.

2023 Environmental Engineering Research 75 citations
Article Tier 2

Recent advances in biodegradation of emerging contaminants - microplastics (MPs): Feasibility, mechanism, and future prospects

This review explores biological approaches to breaking down microplastics, including using bacteria, fungi, and enzymes. While some organisms can partially degrade certain plastic types, the process is slow and incomplete compared to the scale of pollution. The research is promising for future cleanup efforts but shows that biodegradation alone cannot yet solve the microplastic contamination problem.

2023 Chemosphere 81 citations
Article Tier 2

Role of Various Microbes and Their Enzymatic Mechanisms for Biodegradation of Microplastics

This review examines the microbial enzymes and degradation mechanisms responsible for biodegrading microplastic polymers, covering bacterial, fungal, and algal systems that have evolved plastic-degrading capabilities over the past 150 years of plastic production. The authors survey the most promising enzymatic pathways and organisms for biotechnological application in microplastic remediation.

2024
Article Tier 2

Harnessing Microorganisms for Microplastic Degradation: A Sustainable Approach to Mitigating Environmental Pollution

This review surveys microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, and other taxa—capable of degrading microplastics, examining the enzymes, metabolic pathways, and environmental conditions involved, and assessing the practical potential of harnessing these organisms for bioremediation of plastic pollution.

2025 NIPES Journal of Science and Technology Research
Article Tier 2

Microbial degradation of plastics: Biofilms and degradation pathways

This review covers how microorganisms form biofilms on plastic surfaces in soils and water, and how these communities gradually break plastics down through enzymatic activity. Microbial plastic degradation is still slow and incomplete, but understanding the process is key to developing biological plastic cleanup strategies.

2019 Agro Environ Media - Agriculture and Ennvironmental Science Academy, Haridwar, India eBooks 65 citations
Article Tier 2

Classification and microbes involved in Plastic biodegradation: A review

This review classifies types of plastics and catalogues the bacteria, fungi, and other microbes involved in plastic biodegradation, examining enzymatic mechanisms and conditions that facilitate microbial breakdown of synthetic polymers. The authors argue that microbial biodegradation offers a more sustainable and less hazardous alternative to physical and chemical disposal methods such as landfill and incineration.

2024 International Journal of Science and Research Archive
Article Tier 2

Bioremediation of Microplastic Wastes in Soil

This chapter reviews bioremediation strategies for removing microplastics from soil, focusing on microbial and biological approaches to degrading plastic particles smaller than 5 mm. The authors discuss mechanisms of microbial plastic degradation and the promise of bioremediation as a sustainable soil remediation tool.

2024
Article Tier 2

Microplastic accumulation in soils: Unlocking the mechanism and biodegradation pathway

Researchers reviewed how microplastics accumulate in soil and break down biologically, finding that certain microorganisms can form biofilms on plastic surfaces and use enzymes to slowly degrade the polymers — though conditions like pH, temperature, and moisture must be optimized and new plastic-degrading microbes need to be identified before this approach can be widely applied.

2025 Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Systematical review of interactions between microplastics and microorganisms in the soil environment

This review explores interactions between microplastics and microorganisms in soil environments. Researchers found that microplastics pose a threat to the survival and reproduction of soil microbiota, but that soil microorganisms also show potential for degrading and mineralizing microplastic particles, suggesting possible biological pathways for microplastic remediation in terrestrial ecosystems.

2021 Journal of Hazardous Materials 319 citations
Review Tier 2

[Interaction between microplastics and microorganisms in soil environment: a review].

This review examines how microplastics alter soil microbial community structure and diversity, and how microorganisms in turn colonize plastic surfaces and degrade them through extracellular enzymes — with degradation efficiency dependent on polymer properties and environmental conditions.

2023 PubMed 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Biological Degradation of Plastics and Microplastics: A Recent Perspective on Associated Mechanisms and Influencing Factors

This review looks at how bacteria and their enzymes can break down different types of plastics and microplastics through biological processes. Understanding these natural degradation pathways is important because they could be harnessed to reduce the amount of persistent microplastic pollution that accumulates in the environment and eventually enters the human food chain.

2023 Microorganisms 320 citations