Role of Microbial Diversity in Textile Dye Degradation: A Comprehensive Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66173/jenmas.2026.55Keywords:
Dye Degradation, Biodegradation, Textile Dyes, Microbial Degradation, Wastewater Treatment, Industrial EffluentsAbstract
About 80% of the dyes from the textile industry are directly dumped into the water bodies without prior treatment. This leads to the accumulation of these harmful compounds in the water bodies, which causes serious damage to the biota. The current physicochemical processes for effluent treatment have limitations due to high energy consumption, inaccurate technical optimization, and chemical cost. Moreover, the by-products of these processes are usually more harmful than the original dyes. Biotechnology offers a promising solution to this issue through the application of microbes for dye degradation. This approach allows cost-effective, eco-friendly detoxification without the excessive production of toxic by-products. Enzymatic degradation and biosorption are the two major strategies by which microbial-based dye degradation is carried out. This review describes the challenges posed by synthetic dyes and how various microbial species (bacteria, algae, fungi, and yeast) are involved in their degradation. Various emerging technologies, including microbial consortia, engineered microbes, material-assisted, and artificial intelligence (AI) based degradation strategies, are being developed for enhanced microbial efficiency. This review will demonstrate these cutting-edge dye degradation techniques, important bioreactor configurations used for this purpose, and the future directions towards the implementation of sustainable detoxification processes.
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