Disperse Red 3B, an anthraquinone dye, was decolorized by a consortium, which was constituted of the fungus (Aspergillus sp. XJ-2) and the microalgae (Chlorella sorokiniana XJK). The consortium performed better than the single system in terms of decolorization and nutrient removal simultaneously in the simulated wastewater of Dispersed Red 3B. The decolorization rate could reach 98.09% by the consortium under the optimized conditions. The removal rate of COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), TP (Total Phosphorus), and ammonia nitrogen reached 93.9%, 83.9% and 87.6%. Also, the consortium could tolerate higher salt and dye concentration than the single system did. In this co-cultural system, the lignin peroxidase and manganese peroxidase enzyme activities contributed to the degradation of Disperse Red 3B, which reached 86.7 U L À1 and 122.5 U L À1 . The result of fermentation liquid analysis with UV-vis, FTIR and GC-MS showed that the colored functional group of the dye was broken and the Dispersed Red 3B was degraded into small molecular compounds with low toxicity. It was suggested that degradation plays a major role during the color removal process. The consortium exhibited greater potential in terms of color removal and water pollutant removal than the separate system did.

In this report, the decolorization features of extracellular enzymes and mycelia separately prepared from Aspergillus sp. TS-A CGMCC 12,964 (120 h) were investigated. The fermentation broth of TS-A degraded 98.6% of Mordant Yellow 1 (50 mg/L) at an initial pH 6 within 1 h with over 70% of the dye (50 mg/L) degraded by extracellular enzymes and 18.8% removed by live mycelia. The degradation products of the dye were analyzed by UV-Vis and FTIR spectra. The decolorization rates of extracellular enzymes and mycelia were examined under different contact periods, dye concentrations and pH values. The extracellular enzymes exhibited excellent degradation activity under weak acidic conditions. In addition, biosorption models of mycelia fitted well the Langmuir isotherm model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation. Although the decolorization process was achieved through the synergistic effects of mycelia and extracellular enzymes, decolorization was dominated by the biodegradation activity of the extracellular enzymes from TS-A.