Evaluation of biosorption ability of Aspergillus niger’s modified cells to remove copper from industrial wastewater

Subject Areas : Environmental issues related to water systems

Mahin Moradi ¹ , Soroor Sadeghi ² , Sara Sharifi ³

1 - Department of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran.
2 - Department of Chemistry, Basic Sciences Faculty, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran.
3 - Department of Biology, Basic Sciences Faculty, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran.

Received: 2024-02-01 Accepted : 2024-06-11 Published : 2024-07-14

Keywords: Biosorption, Chemical cell modification, Copper, Industrial wastewater treatment, Aspergillus niger, Metal plating industry ,

Abstract :

The removal of heavy metal pollution existing in industrial wastewater is one of the major challenges in preserving water resources. Copper is one of the metals that is present in the effluent of many industries, especially metal plating industries with high concentrations, and the absorption of this metal by renewable and available bio-sorbents has received much attention. The present study was conducted to investigate the biosorption ability of Aspergillus niger fungus cells in removing copper ions from industrial wastewater and determining the parameters affecting it. Aspergillus niger fungus cells were pre-treated with sodium hydroxide before the biosorption process to reach the maximum biological absorption capacity. A certain weight of dry biomass was placed in contact with 25 ml of copper solution at 25°C, and after a specific contact time, the biomass was filtered by centrifugation, and copper concentration was measured using the spectroscopy method at a wavelength of 324 nm. According to the results, the best efficiency of active biosorption in optimal conditions using 0.1 g of active fungus cells was 81.15% at a pH of 7 in a copper metal solution with a concentration of 200 mg.L-1, after 5 minutes of contact time at 25°C. Optimum conditions were applied to real wastewater samples from the electroplating industry and after 60 minutes of contact time, the removal efficiency was 99.94%. The biological absorption process follows the Langmuir isotherm model and kinetic studies showed that the biological absorption processes follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation, which shows the involvement of the chemical absorption process in determining the rate of copper biosorption by Aspergillus niger fungus cells. Also, bio-sorbent regeneration and copper recycling have been investigated. This study showed that Aspergillus niger can be used as a renewable, effective, low-cost, and environmentally friendly bio-sorbent for the removal and recovery of copper from metal plating industry wastewater.

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