Knowledge Sharing

Nitrogen, especially in the form of inorganic nitrite and nitrate, is one of the major pollutants in freshwaters and human wastewater. Researchers from the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources in Xiamen and the IGB have identified a natural fungus-bacteria consortium that metabolises nitrate particularly efficiently and consistently. This could be crucial for the further development of biotechnological approaches in water treatment and provides further evidence of the important role of fungi in aquatic ecosystems. Biological nitrogen removal, denitrification, is an important biochemical process. In this process, microorganisms convert two of the most important nitrogen compounds, nitrate and nitrite, into gaseous nitrogen. This occurs naturally in water bodies through metabolic processes of the organisms living there and is referred to as self-purification. This principle is also used in water treatment. So far, various bacteria and fungi have been identified in pure culture that can ...