Biosorption of Lead (II) Ions from Aqueous Solutions by Aspergillus Niger and Trichoderma Sp. Fungal Biomasses

Ling, Wei Hong (2020) Biosorption of Lead (II) Ions from Aqueous Solutions by Aspergillus Niger and Trichoderma Sp. Fungal Biomasses. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

One of the major current environmental issues is water pollution and contamination which may lead to several long-term negative impacts on the living organisms. The wastewaters may contain toxic heavy metals ions especially lead (II) and it is one of the most hazardous heavy metals. Therefore, many processes and new technologies are studied in order to treat wastewaters or the polluted water. There is one promising process that can be used as an alternative to traditional physicochemical process, that is biosorption process. Biosorption process is a process that uses dead or living biomass for passive cation binding that may represent another cost-effective method to remove heavy metals from the wastewaters. Several recent studies focused on the ability of microorganisms for the heavy metal ions removal and fungi have been found to be a potential inexpensive biosorbent for removal of heavy metals from the aqueous solutions. In this study, two dried fungal biomasses which are Aspergillus Niger and Trichoderma species were investigated to remove the lead (II) ions from the aqueous solution and comparing the efficiencies of these two fungal biomasses. It was demonstrated by using the batch method with the dried fungal biomasses ranged from 2g/L to 10g/L, concentration from 20 mg/L to 180 mg/L at different pH values. It was found that the biosorption capacity of the fungal biomasses was strongly dependent on the pH of the solution. For A.Niger, the biosorption capacity is highest at pH 6 and the lowest at extremely low pH, pH 3 and high pH which is pH 12. Both of the fungi achieved highest biosorption capacity with dried fungi biomass of 0.2g from 100mL of 50ppm lead (II) solutions, but this result showed that the biosorption of lead ions by Trichoderma sp. was slightly higher than A.Niger in comparison. The removal efficiency of lead (II) ions by A.Niger was 50-60% with the optimum contact time of 4 hours. This biosorption process followed two linear equilibrium which are Freundlich and the Langmuir adsorption isotherms whereas Freundlich isotherm fitted well to this present study with a higher R2 value of 0.9977.