Cunninghamella elegans biomass optimisation for textile wastewater biosorption treatment: an analytical and ecotoxicological approach

Abstract

The effect of pre-treatments on the composition of Cunninghamella elegans biomass and on its biosorption yields in the treatment of simulated textile wastewaters was investigated. The inactivated biomass was subjected to physical treatments, such as oven drying and lyophilisation, and chemical treatments using acid or alkali. The wastewater colour, COD and toxicity variations were evaluated. The lyophilisation sped up the biosorption process, whereas the chemical pre-treatment changed the affinity of biomass for different dyes. The alkali per-treated biomass achieved the highest COD reduction in the treatment of alkali wastewaters, probably because no release of alkali-soluble biomass components occurred under the alkaline pH conditions. Accordingly, only the acid pre-treated biomass decreased the COD of the acidic effluent. The ecotoxicity test showed significant toxicity reduction after biosorption treatments, indicating that decolourisation corresponds to an actual detoxification of the treated wastewaters. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analyses of biomasses allowed highlighting their main chemical and physical properties and the changes induced by the different pre-treatments, as well as the effect of the chemical species adsorbed from wastewaters.

Biosorption with autochthonous and allochthonous fungal biomasses for bioremediation and detoxification of landfill leachate

“…( Table 1). The same result was already observed towards textile wastewaters, however in that case the effect of the biomass lyophilisation was more evident (Tigini et al 2011). Since any biomass pre-treatment causes costs increase, this should be motivated by a significant improvement of biosorption yields (Gadd, 2009).…”

“…In the present work, a total of 19 fungal biomasses were exploited in decolourisation experiments for the treatment of two real samples: a crude landfill leachate and the effluent coming from a traditional wastewater treatment plant (nitrification-denitrification treatment and oxidation by means of activated sludge). Four out of 19 were allochthonous fungal biomasses, selected for their biosorption capability (Tigini et al 2012(Tigini et al , 2011 or for their availability as industrial byproducts. The other 15 biomasses originated from 7 autochthonous fungi selected in a previous decolourisation screening (Selbmann et al 2013;Tigini et al 2014).…”

Fungal Waste-Biomasses as Potential Low-Cost Biosorbents for Decolorization of Textile Wastewaters

“…On the other hand, the A. strictum biomass proved to be effective only against exhausted dye baths at acidic or neutral pH, but it should be noted that the A. strictum biosorption yields are quite comparable with those of other biomasses reported in the literature [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Once again, the C. elegans biomass can be considered a truly exceptional biosorbent in terms of performance and versatility, however also the A. strictum biomass could find future application for the treatment of acid exhausted dye baths.…”

“…In the present study, the biosorption potentials of three fungal waste-biomasses from the pharmaceutical industry (towards three simulated exhausted dye baths) were compared with that of a selected fungal biomass (Cunninghamella elegans Lendner) which in the light of previous experiments had already proven to be very effective in synthetic dyes and chromium removal with both mono and multi-component dye solutions, for simulated exhausted dye baths and a real tanning effluent [13][14][15][16]. Afterwards, in order to assess the value of the biosorption process under real conditions, the two most promising biomasses were tested against nine real exhausted dye baths representative of different dye types and dyeing processes.…”

Biosorption of Azo dyes by spent Rhizopus arrhizus biomass

“…Many research groups have explored the use of biosorbents derived from microbial biomasses, including algae, bacteria, and fungi as well as agricultural and industrial byproducts (Crini 2006). The dead and dried biomaterials are preferred, as they gave comparable performance with easy recovery of sorbet without polluting the environment by releasing toxic by-products during operation (Tigini et al 2011). Dead biomass is not affected by toxic waste or chemicals and does not require nutrients.…”