NewBioWorld A Journal
of Alumni Association of Biotechnology (2019) 1(1):13-15
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Biosorption of Iron (II) from
Aqueous Solution on Live Biomass of Aspergillus
versicolor
Tikendra Kumar Verma, K. L.
Tiwari and S. K. Jadhav*
S.o.S. in Biotechnology, Pt.
Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur (C.G.) 492010, India.
*Email- jadhav9862@gmail.com
ARTICLE
INFORMATION
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ABSTRACT
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Article history:
Received
21 August 2017
Received in revised form
2 August 2018
Accepted
6 November 2018
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The
development of novel biosorbent is a challenge in the age of biotechnology. Biosorbent
has a higher capacity for the removal of heavy metal pollutants from
industrial wastewater and is necessary as it is more efficient than traditional
technologies. In this study, we have examined living biomass of Aspergillus versicolor for the removal
of Fe(II) from aqueous solution and found its maximum biosorption capacity of
Fe(II) was 4.44 mg/g. This biosorption process was also tested under
different conditions such as contact time, pH, temperature and initial metal
ion concentration in batch setup. The optimum rate of biosorption was found after
8th days of contact time at pH 5.0 and 30˚C of temperature. The Langmuir and
Freundlich isotherm model was successfully applied for the Fe(II) biosorption
data and their value of correlation coefficients (R2) were
obtained as 0.971 and 0.981, respectively, thus both isotherm models were best
fitted on the equilibrium data.
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Keywords:
Biosorption
Aspergillus versicolor
Iron
Isotherm model
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Introduction
In present scenario, environmental pollution has become a serious issue.
The technological activities of human being, rapid utilization of minerals and
industrial processing such as mining, metal surface treating etc are causing
environmental pollution, which affects both flora and fauna. High levels of
toxic metals or substances are directly or indirectly threatening to human
life. The presence of high amount of iron in natural water resources are
usually due to the disposal of effluent from steel and iron related industries,
the outflow of acidic water from metal mines, weathering of rocks and minerals,
leachates from the landfill. Like, other heavy metal pollution, toxic amounts
of iron present in water body cause iron pollution. In the USA on Ohio River stretch,
iron dominated mine discharges affected the freshwater mussels, some of which
are threatened or endangered (Milam and Farris 1998). Chhattisgarh,
particularly Raipur, Bilaspur, Raigarh and Korba are the steel hubs of the
India. The country has its Asia’s biggest steel plant (Bhilai Steel Plant)
located in the Bhilai region of Chhattisgarh, which is near to Raipur.
Nowadays, the capital city of this state Raipur is considered as the heart of
steel and the biggest market place for steel in India. Siltara and Urla are two
very important industrial sectors of Raipur city. Among 25 small, 17 medium and
9 large sponge iron plant of Raipur, there are 33 and 11 sponge iron plants in
Siltara and Urla, respectively (CSE 2011).
Iron is one of the heavy metal, which is widely used in electroplating
industries, steel and ferroalloy units etc. At low concentration, iron is an
important nutrient for algae and another aquatic organism in fresh water, but
at a higher concentration it is lethal for aquatic organism and has considered
as problem since long (Vuori 1995). High concentration of iron in tissue has
also been associated with the pathological conditions, including certain type
of cancer, liver and heart disease, diabetes, hormonal and immunological
abnormalities (Fraga and Oteiza 2002). Various disorders due to iron overload
are directly linked to the iron’s toxicity. The toxic nature of these
pollutants is of serious concern and its remedial measure from industrial
effluents is of prime concern (Kareem et al. 2014).
Biosorption is one of the methods to rectify these problems. It is
defined by Volesky (2007) as “the property of certain biomolecules or type of
biomass to bind and concentrate selected ions or other molecules from aqueous
solution”. According to Wang and Chen (2009), various types of a biological
system like bacteria, yeast, algae and fungi etc. are already investigated to
remove heavy metals from aqueous solutions.
The present investigation was aimed to examine the living biomass of Aspergillus versicolor for the iron biosorption.
Different experimental conditions such as contact time, pH, temperature and
initial metal ion concentration were also studied to know the effects on the biosorption
capacity of the living biomass of A.
versicolor. The uptake capacity was also examined using the isotherm model
for characterization.
Materials and method
Collection of microorganism
The fungal strain A. versicolor
was isolated by serial dilution method from the industrial wastewater of Urla
industrial area, Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The fungal strain was identified on the
basis of morphological and its microscopic features (Nagamani et al. 2006). The
fungal culture was regularly maintained on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium.
Biomass Preparation
The fungal strain A. versicolor
was propagated on in Potato Dextrose Broth (PDB) at pH 5.5-6.0 and after 3-4
days of fungal growth, the fungal spore suspension about 100 µL of 10-1
fold dilution was transferred into the experimental setup. The pH was adjusted
using 0.1N HCl and 0.1N NaOH solution. The batch biosorption experiment was
carried out into a series of 150 mL of Erlenmeyer’s flask containing 50 mL of
PDB supplemented with 5 mg/L Fe(II), approximately (Verma et al. 2017). In the
medium, Fe(NH4)2SO4.6H2O (ferrous
ammonium sulfate) salt was used as Fe(II) supplement and the experimental setup
was incubated on 100 rpm rotary shaker at 26±1˚C for 9 days after inoculation
along with control medium having no fungal presence.
Biosorption
experiment
The batch biosorption experiments were performed under different
parameters. A series of experiments were conducted to determine the effects of contact
time (1st day to 9th day), pH (3.0 to 9.0), temperature (20˚C to 40˚C) and
initial metal ion concentration (5 to 50 mg/L). At the end of each experiment,
the live fungal mass was removed by filtration and the filtrate was analyzed
for remaining iron concentration in the medium. An Iron test kit was used to
determine the iron concentration (test range 0.005-5.00 mg/L) developed by
Merck (Germany). The absorbance level of the solution was measured using
Photometer (Spectroquant NOVA 60 developed by Merck, Germany). The experimental
works performed thoroughly in triplicates and mean values were used in the
analysis of data.
The assessment of the percent (%) removal of metal ion (Olusola and
Aransiola, 2015) was done using the equation below:
Where, Ci =
initial metal ion concentration, mg/L; Cf
= final metal ion concentration, mg/L.
Adsorption isotherm
Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were used for the analysis of data,
which was obtained from the biosorption of Fe(II). Langmuir’s isotherm model explains
the assumption by the formation of a monolayer on adsorbent surface containing
a fixed number of metal binding sites (Langmuir 1918), which is written as:
where, qe is the
amount adsorbed per unit of weight of biosorbent (mg/g); Ce is the equilibrium concentration (mg/L); qmax is the maximum amount
adsorbed at equilibrium and KL
is a Langmuir constant isotherm (Lmg-1).
The Freundlich equation (Freundlich 1906) proposes an empirical adsorption
model which describes the sorption characteristics of the heterogeneous surface
and the following equation represents the Freundlich isotherms:
where, KF (mg/g)
and n are constants and indicator of the biosorption capacity and biosorption
intensity, respectively; Ce
is the equilibrium concentration (mg/L); qe
is the amount adsorbed (mg/g).
Results and Discussion
Effect of contact
time
The percentage removal of Fe(II) by living biomass of A. versicolor was rapidly increased for
the period of 1st to 8th day (3.67% to 74.13%) of the contact
time. After the 8th day, the percentage removal of biosorption
remained nearly constant (Fig. 1). Similar work was reported by Verma et al.
(2017) for Fe(II) using live biomass of A.
flavus. Shivakumar et al. (2014) suggested that increasing contact time
caused higher accumulation of heavy metal and after the growth period it
remained constant.
Figure 1: Effect
of contact time on biosorption of Fe(II) by live biomass of A. versicolor
Effect of pH
The pH is the most important factor for metal sequestration. It
influences the metal ion speciation and its biosorption availability (Kareem et
al. 2014). The optimum percentage removal of Fe(II) was 90.20% at pH 5.0 (Fig.
2). Similar observation was reported by (Ngah et al. 2005) for adsorption of
Fe(II) on chitosan and cross-linked chitosan beads at pH 5.0. Shivakumar et al.
(2014) were observed the maximum removal of heavy metal by A. niger and A. flavus in
the pH range 5.0-6.0.
Figure 2: Effect
of pH on biosorption of Fe(II) by live biomass of A. versicolor
Effect of temperature
Optimum Fe(II) uptake was observed at a temperature of 30˚C with
percentage removal was 92.51% (Fig. 3). This result showed positive agreement
with the previous findings of Shivakumar et al. (2014) for heavy metal removal
by A. niger and A. flavus at 25-30˚C and Verma et al. (2017) for Fe(II) removal by A. flavus at 30-35˚C.
Figure 3: Effect
of temperature on biosorption of Fe (II) by live biomass of A. versicolor
Effect of initial
metal ion concentration
When initial concentration of Fe(II) was increased from 5 to 50 mg/L, the
metal removal percentage was also decreased from 92.00% to 59.22%, respectively
(Fig. 4). Similar results reported by Verma et al. (2013) for Cu(II)
biosorption using free and immobilized biomass of Penicillium citrinum and Moghadam et al. (2013) for Fe(II)
biosorption using pomegranate peel carbon. Fomina and Gadd (2014) suggested
that the availability of binding sites for metal ion on biosorbent surface
relatively decreased with increasing initial metal ion concentration, which
caused reduction in biosorption capacity.
Figure 4: Effect
of initial metal ion concentration on biosorption of Fe(II) by live biomass of A. versicolor
Isotherms analysis
The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption model were used to fit the data
on it, which was obtained from the biosorption of Fe(II) at different metal ion
concentrations (5 to 50 mg/L). The values of correlation coefficients (R2
≥ 0.96) and corresponding constants (KL,
KF and n) for each model are shown in Table 1. The
experimental data results indicated that the biosorption of Fe(II) onto the
live biomass of A. versicolor best
fitted in both isotherm models (Fig. 5).
Table 1: Isotherm
parameters associated with Fe(II) biosorption by live biomass of A. versicolor
Langmuir isotherm model
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Freundlich isotherm model
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qmax(mg/g)
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KL(L/mg)
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R2
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KF(mg/g)
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n
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R2
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4.44
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0.710
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0.971
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1.537
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0.415
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0.981
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Langmuir isotherms
Freundlich
isotherms
Figure 5: Langmuir
isotherm and Freundlich isotherm plots for Fe(II) biosorption on living biomass
of A. versicolor
Conclusion
In this study, the results showed that the Fe(II) biosorption using
living biomass of A. versicolor was
highly dependent on experimental factors such as contact time, pH, temperature
and metal ion concentration. The maximum biosorption capacity of Fe(II) of live
biomass of A. versicolor was
4.44 mg/g. The equilibrium data was well fitted with both isotherm model
(Langmuir and Freundlich) for the mathematical description of biosorption of
Fe(II). The maximum biosorption
capacity of Fe(II) of live biomass of A. versicolor was 4.44 mg/g. Thus, the present study provides the insights of
potential of fungi for metal biosorption and
it can be use for the removal of metal ion from the wastewater.
Conflict of interest
Authors had no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
The authors are thankful to Department of Science & Technology, New
Delhi for granted the funds in the form of DST-FIST (Sl. No. 270 for tenure of
2013-18) and also thankful to PRSU
Raipur, for financial support to the author in the form of University Research
Fellowship.
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