Biosorption of Lead and Copper Ions in Aqueous Solutions using Biomass of Indigenous Fungal Isolates, Fusarium equiseti and Penicillium citrinum

• Main Author: Wahab Abideen, Akinkunmi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Q Science (General); QK Botany
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10923/2/Wahab%28fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/10923/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Bioremediation is an alternative green technology for the removal of heavy metals pollution because of their toxicity to the environment and public health. Screening of fungal isolates, isolated from mangrove soil environment with promising potentials for sequestering heavy metals from aqueous solutions led to the isolation of the two indigenous fungal strains. The fungal isolates were identified via morphological and molecular techniques, and identified as Fusarium equiseti UMAS A0 and Penicillium citrinum UMAS B2. This fungal isolates were used as biosorbent to remove lead(II) and copper(II) ions from aqueous solution at laboratory scale experiments. The evaluation of metal removal was analysed via residual metal ions concentration in the reaction medium. The optimum conditions for lead(II) and copper(II) ions absorption by F. equiseti was obtained at pH 4 and pH 9, temperature of 300C, initial metal concentration of 300 mg L-1 and 30 mg L-1, and 97.9% and 17.7% of biosorption efficiency in 5 days, respectively.