A Biosorption study of Lead by Aspergillus Fumigatus

Abstract

Heavy metals liberated by various industrial and agricultural processes are the major pollutants in soil, agricultural, marine, and industrial and even treated waste waters. Lead is greatly used in many industrial applications such as a storage battery manufacturing, printing, fuels, photographic materials, pigments and explosive manufacturing Objective: To assess the ability of Aspergillus fumigatus for removal of metal contamination such as lead by biosorptionMethods: The pure culture of the Aspergillus fumigatus was used for biosorption. The initial samples were cultured on the bread as the fungal spores were given suitable environmental conditions i.e., temperature, moisture, pH etc. For obtaining the pure culture of the Aspergillus fumigatus culture media was prepared. The spores collected were then allowed to grow on a specific culture media in a sterile Petri plates under aseptic conditions. Inoculation will be carried out by using 20 loops of fungal spores spread on the culture medium. After inoculation these plates were incubated at 28°C for few days and the colonies of the fungal strain becomes visible after 48 hours. The prepared agar is poured in the sterilized Petri plates were allowed to cool and solidify. As a result of this centrifugation, the spores and agar were separated. After 12 days of incubation, one fourth portion of the agar plate was cut and placed into the falcon tubes containing 10 ml distilled water Results: The results revealed that the biosorption recovery rate is maximum at 120 mg\g of dry mass i.e. 3.4%. The above estimation shows that the percentage of biosorption is directly proportional to the biomass concentration.