Bioremediation of anthracene and remazol brilliant blue R by fungi

Fungi are reported as a potent tool to biodegrade many type of organic pollutants for instance polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and synthetic dyes that caused severe pollution to the environment. This research emphasized on biodegradation and biosorption process of PAHs and synthetic dyes; anthracene and Remazol Brilliant Blue R (RBBR) collected from decayed wood and soil. Trichoderma citrinoviride W04, Trichoderma koningiopsis W14 and Pestalotiopsis W15 were selected among twenty fungi species based on faster growth rate after 5 days of incubation. The identification of fungal species was done by morphology characterization and 18S rRNA sequence analysis. According to phylogenetic tree, W04, W14 and W15 were classified as Trichoderma citrinoviride, Trichoderma koningiopsis, and Pestalotiopsis sp. These three fungi species were used further to study the environmental effects; agitation, carbon and nitrogen sources and pH were investigated to choose optimum parameters. Optimization parameters are compulsory to obtain better results. The biodegradation and biosorption process were investigated using UV-Vis spectrophotometer, gas chromatography (GC), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). The optimum parameters for RBBR by Pestalotiopsis sp. W15 in this study were glucose (86.7%), yeast (91.9%), agitation condition (71.1%) and pH 5 (88.4%). Meanwhile, Trichoderma koningiospsis W14 had the highest degradation of anthracene and optimum in galactose (55.34%), ammonium chloride (55.2%), agitation (46.8%) and pH 5 (26.2%) culture condition. Isotherm and kinetic studies for RBBR and anthracene showed the adsorption process best fit the Langmuir with R2 of 0.93 and 0.90 with maximum biosorption capacity; 0.17 and 0.78 and followed pseudo second order models with rate constant of 0.19 x 0.1/min and 0.47 x 0.1/min. This result demonstrated that fungi are promising biosorbent material to treat RBBR and anthracene

Utilization of durian peel as potential adsorbent for bisphenol a removal in aquoeus solution

This study explored the low-cost adsorbent of durian peel for BPA removal from aqueous solutions. The effect of various operational parameters such as contact time, temperature, concentration, agitation and pH on the adsorption of BPA was investigated using the batch adsorption study. It was found that Durian peel can be used as a low cost adsorbent for the removal of BPA in aqueous solution after treated with sulfuric acid. The effects of morphology, functional groups, and surface area of adsorbent, before and after pretreatment with sulfuric acid and reaction were investigated by using FESEM, FTIR, and BET. The present study indicates that durian peel had removed 69.63% of BPA with adsorption capacity of 4.178 mg/g for 24 hours. The result proved that this treated agricultural waste was promising material as an alternative adsorbent for the removal of BPA from aqueous solution. Kinetic study of the results gave a pseudo-second order type of mechanism while the adsorption characteristics of the adsorbent followed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm

Removal of brilliant green and procionred dyes from aqueous solutionby adsorption using selected agricultural wastes

Approximately 10-15 % of usage synthetic textile dyes are released to waste streams meanwhile the effluent release from wastewater treatment plant contribute 20 %. Adsorption being a physical process, inexpensive and less time consuming, is widely accepted to eliminate dyes from wastewater. An experiment was carried out to observe the adsorption of Brilliant Green and Procion Red dye. The experiment is to identify the most effective adsorbent to remove the colour of Brilliant Green and Procion Red. Both dyes were mixed with the agricultural wastes, spent tea leaves, jackfruit peels, rambutan peels, and mangosteen peels. The percentage of removal and adsorption capacity of the dyes were examined. Rambutan peels were the most effective adsorbent to remove Brilliant Green which is 96.42 % with 9.64 mg/g adsorption capacity, whereas for Procion Red, jackfruit peels were recorded as the highest percentage of removal, 61.2 % with 6.12 mg/g adsorption capacity in 24 hours. Based on FESEM and FTIR results, the effectiveness of adsorbents was affected by the structure of the adsorbent, presence of pores and functional groups. Functional group of carbonyl and carboxyl helps in the adsorption process and will form bonds with the dyes and thus remove them from the solution