{"doi":"10.1021/acs.est.3c04016","title":"Evaluating Sustainable Development Pathways for Protein- and Peptide-Based Bioadsorbents for Phosphorus Recovery from Wastewater","abstract":"High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Recovering phosphate (P) from point sources such as wastewater effluent is a priority in order to alleviate the impacts of eutrophication and implement a circular economy for an increasingly limited resource. Bioadsorbents featuring P-binding proteins and peptides offer exquisite P specificity and sensitivity for achieving ultralow P concentrations, i.e., <100 μg P L –1, a discharge limit that has been implemented in at least one treatment facility in nine U.S. states. To prioritize research objectives for P recovery in wastewater treatment, we compared the financial and environmental sustainability of protein/peptide bioadsorbents to those of LayneRT anion exchange resin. The baseline scenario (reflecting lab-demonstrated performance at a full-scale implementation) had costs that were 3 orders of magnitude higher than those for typical wastewater treatment. However, scenarios exploring bioadsorbent improvements, including increasing the P-binding capacity per unit volume by using smaller P-selective peptides and nanoparticle base materials and implementing reuse, dramatically decreased median impacts to $1.06 m –3 and 0.001 kg CO 2 equiv m –3; these values are in line with current wastewater treatment impacts and lower than the median LayneRT impacts of $4.04 m –3 and 0.19 kg CO 2 equiv m –3 . While the financial viability of capturing low P concentrations is a challenge, incorporating the externalities of environmental impacts may provide a feasible path forward to motivate ultralow P capture.","journal":"Environmental Science & Technology","year":2023,"id":358763,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":11,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9452,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1109125,"name":"Faten B. Hussein","orcid":"0000-0001-6397-3756","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":771634,"name":"Brooke K. Mayer","orcid":"0000-0002-4858-2834","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":771633,"name":"Justin M. Hutchison","orcid":"0000-0002-5575-6169","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:48.379546Z","pmid":"37856833","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}