A Durban University of Technology (DUT) doctoral student has discovered that a fungus can be used to replace harmful chemicals used in the food and paper industries.
Microbiologist Nokuthula Mchunu-Nxumalo, who has spent 18 months working with academics at Malaysia's University of Science and Technology and the DUT, said she was excited about her research and its findings.
She said a xylanase enzyme produced by a certain fungus "is able to actually replace chlorine that is used to bleach paper", and was environmentally friendly.
Chlorine is harmful to organisms living in water and soil and is also bad for workers. Repeated exposure to the element can damage immune and respiratory systems as well as the heart.
Professor Suren Singh, who heads the department of biotechnology and food technology at DUT, said Mchunu-Nxumalo's work was a milestone for the school's research output.
Professor Kugen Permaul, who co-supervised the student's work, said: "Mchunu-Nxumalo intends producing at least two scientific articles from the results of her project, as well as filing patents for genes that produce enzymes of industrial importance."
The doctoral student, who grew up in Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape, has also discovered more than 200 proteins or enzymes responsible for plant and waste degradation.
South Africa has a lot of agricultural waste from growing maize, rice and sugar cane and this, said Mchunu-Nxumalo, could be converted into biofuel, for example.
"The proteins can actually convert plant waste into biofuel," she said.
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