Fungi-based treatment of brewery wastewater—biomass production and nutrient reduction

Abstract

The beer-brewing process produces high amounts of nutrient-rich wastewater, and the increasing number of microbreweries worldwide has created a need for innovative solutions to deal with this waste. In the present study, fungal biomass production and the removal of organic carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen from synthetic brewery wastewater were studied. Different filamentous fungi with a record of safe use were screened for growth, and Trametes versicolor, Pleurotus ostreatus and Trichoderma harzianum were selected for further work. The highest biomass production, 1.78 ± 0.31 g L−1 of dry weight, was observed when P. ostreatus was used for the treatment, while T. harzianum demonstrated the best capability for removing nutrients. The maximum reduction of chemical oxygen demand, 89% of the initial value, was observed with this species. In the removal of total nitrogen and phosphorus, no significant difference was observed between the species, while removal of ammonium varied between the strains. The maximum reduction of ammonium, 66.1% of the initial value, was also found in the T. harzianum treatment. It can be concluded that all treatments provided significant reductions in all water-quality parameters after 3 days of growth and that the utilisation of filamentous fungi to treat brewery wastewater, linked to a deliberate strategy to use the biomass produced, has future potential in a bio-based society.

Disentangling the Drivers of Diversity and Distribution of Fungal Community Composition in Wastewater Treatment Plants Across Spatial Scales

“…Moreover, a previous study showed that the SS and BOD 5 removal efficiencies were 87 and 93% respectively in a domestic WWTP in Turkey ( Tanyol and Demir, 2016 ). In wastewater treatment ecosystems, fungal strains can remove phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater ( Hultberg and Bodin, 2017 ). Together, these results revealed that there were significant improvements in wastewater qualities after biochemical treatment process.…”

Removal of total phosphorus, ammonia nitrogen and organic carbon from non-sterile municipal wastewater with Trametes versicolor and Aspergillus luchuensis

“…Similarly, researchers who have previously conducted research on the P removal from municipal wastewater under batch experiments, have also presented a fungal ability to reduce P where the removal efficiency has varied from 12 to 100 % (Hultberg and Bodin, 2017;Sankaran et al, 2010;Ye et al, 2015). For example, Hultberg and Bodin (2017) investigated the pH effect on the P removal by using fungi in synthetic brewery wastewater (Hultberg and Bodin, 2017). In addition, results showed there was no significant effect on the pH level.…”

“…Furthermore, all of these transformations are developed together to be combined with the enzyme system and the ability of adsorption, deposition and ion exchange (Dalecka et al, 2020a,b;Pedroza-Rodríguez and Rodríguez-Vázquez, 2013). However, most of the studies investigated the removal of pharmaceutical substances from municipal wastewater using laboratory strains from culture collections, including T. versicolor (He et al, 2019;Hultberg and Bodin, 2017;Spina et al, 2012). Therefore, Guest and Smith (2007) have suggested using fungi that are naturally available in a municipal wastewater treatment plant due to their adaptation to the environmental and operation conditions.…”

Effectiveness of two-stage horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetland planted with Cyperus alternifolius and Typha latifolia in treating anaerobic reactor brewery effluent at different hydraulic residence times

“…Among the subdivisions, beverage industries in Ethiopia cause high pollution problems by discharging their untreated or partially treated effluents into nearby water bodies and irrigated soils (Oljira et al 2018). Since brewery wastewater contains variable pollutants such as carbohydrates, alcohols, suspended solids, yeast (Mohan et al 2018); proteins, ethanol, and volatile fatty acids (Raposo et al 2010); nutrients, refractory organics, and pathogens (Hultberg and Bodin 2017).…”