Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

BIOSORPTION OF LEAD (PB(II)) IONS BY ACTIVE AND INACTIVE BIOMASS OF HEAVY METAL TOLERANT FUNGAL BIOMASS ISOLATED FROM THE POLLUTED SITES

Shobha Shrivastava and Mayuri Gupta

Abstract

Heavy metals impose a severe environmental and public health hazard because of their toxic effects and their ability to incorporate in terrestrial and aquatic food chains. Biosorption has many disadvantages over conventional technologies in significant metal removal performance from large volumes of effluents. Fungal biosorption can effectively be used for the removal of metals from contaminated water and soil. Heavy metal tolerant fungal species were isolated from the polluted sites and the most tolerant fungal strain FI-01 was selected. The FI-01 strain was identified as Penicillium chrysogenum on the basis of morphological and microscopic characterization. The live (active) and dead (inactive) biomass was prepared for biosorption assay. The operating parameters viz., pH, temperature and initial metal ion concentration was optimized to 5.0, 35 °C and 100 mg/l for maximum biosorption. The dead biomass has shown 23.2 percent more biosorption capacity. The biosorption data of dead biomass shows good fit with the Freundlich adsorption isotherm.