Abstract
Endocrine disruptors are newly identified water contaminants and immediately caught worldwide concern. An effort has been made to degrade endocrine disruptors in the water body by relying on laccase-assisted approaches, including laccase-mediated catalytic systems, immobilized laccase catalytic systems, and nano-catalytic systems based on atypical protein enzymes. Analogous to laccases, polyoxometalates (POMs) have a similar size as these enzymes. They are also capable of using oxygen as an electron acceptor, which could assist the removal of endocrine disruptors in water. This perspective begins with a brief introduction to endocrine disruptors and laccases, summarizes current approaches employing laccases, and focuses on the nano-catalytic systems that mimic the function of laccases. Among the inorganic nanoparticles, POMs meet the design requirements and are easy for large-scale production. The catalytic performance of POMs in water treatment is highlighted, and an example of using polyoxovanadates for endocrine disruptor degradation is given at the end of this perspective. Exploring laccase-mimetic POMs will give key insights into the degradation of emergent water contaminants.
Highlights
Endocrine disruptors are emergent water contaminants which frequently found in every aspect of human life, including some plastic bottles and containers, fungicides, disinfectants, anti-viral agents, pharmaceutical drugs for oral analgesic and mild anesthetic, and cosmetics and skin care products (Figure 1A) (Bilal et al, 2019a)
Laccase catalyzed reaction effectively removes many kinds of trace pollutants, which are difficult to degrade in wastewater, especially some phenolic endocrine disruptors (Mate and Alcalde, 2017; Janusz et al, 2020)
The lack of reaction-specificity is another concern related to nanozymes, including POMs
Summary
Endocrine disruptors are emergent water contaminants which frequently found in every aspect of human life, including some plastic bottles and containers, fungicides, disinfectants, anti-viral agents, pharmaceutical drugs for oral analgesic and mild anesthetic, and cosmetics and skin care products (Figure 1A) (Bilal et al, 2019a). Laccase catalyzed reaction effectively removes many kinds of trace pollutants, which are difficult to degrade in wastewater, especially some phenolic endocrine disruptors (Mate and Alcalde, 2017; Janusz et al, 2020). POMs have demonstrated their promising biological activities, such as antitumoral (Bijelic et al, 2019), antimicrobial (Xu et al, 2020; Chen et al, 2021; Chen et al, 2022), insulin-sensitizing (Chen et al, 2020), immune-enhancing activities (Li et al, 2021; Li et al, 2022) In virtue of their structural diversity and physicochemical properties, POM-based nanomaterials exert oxidoreductase-mimicking activities, including oxidase, FIGURE 2 | (A) Conventional types of polyoxometalates (M = Mo, W, V, Nb; X = heteroatom). The lack of reaction-specificity is another concern related to nanozymes, including POMs. POMs are able to catalyze the oxidation of a wide range of substrates and act as enzymes. POMs are expected to gain novel and improved physicochemical properties relevant to the development of novel catalysts for wastewater treatment in the near future
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
