Isolation and assessment of highly sucrose-tolerant yeast strains for honey processing factory’s effluent treatment

Abstract

Wastewater from many food and beverage manufacturers is enriched in organic content, and it must therefore be treated before being discharged to comply with the strict environmental regulations to protect the final water quality. Concretely, the honey processing wastewater, that remains in holding tanks until is disposal, is a rich source of sugars and this high level of organic material will degrade the water quality if not treated properly provoking an imbalance in the ecosystem. There are different strategies for an adequate treatment of this wastewater effluent to obtain a sustainable usage. One of the techniques that is more cost-effective and environmental friendlier than chemical procedures used for water remediation, is the use of microorganisms (including algae, fungi, yeasts, or bacteria). Given that they are fast-growing, robust, and metabolically diverse, yeast strains are often used for wastewater treatment. In this work, we have studied the potential for bioremediation of non Saccharomyces yeast isolated from a honey processing wastewater generated by an Argentine exporting company. The inoculation of these yeast strains to the existing flora in the honey wastewater yielded a better improvement in the treatment yield. These results suggest that these strains display a promising role could for optimizing bioremediation strategies in industrial wastewater treatment processes.