Usman Umar Zango
Maharishi Markandeshwar University, India
Title: Bioremediation of cadmium from industrial effluent by fungal consortium
Biography
Biography: Usman Umar Zango
Abstract
Heavy metals pollution has become a major environmental concern all over the world. They are released into the environment due to anthropogenic activities and affect human health especially, if they are released in large amounts or if accumulated over the time. Heavy metals such as Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr) and Copper (Cu) are common heavy metals that are quite detrimental to the environment. Cadmium is commonly found in the effluent of electroplating and batteries industries. In the current study Aspergillus terreus and Aspergillus fumigatus were isolated from industrial effluent and identified based on morphological, 18S rRNA sequencing using ITS primer sets and phylogenetic analyses. These fungal isolates were grown at different concentrations of cadmium up to 700 mg/L. Bioremoval of the cadmium was carried out in the liquid medium under optimized conditions such as pH, temperature, inoculum size and incubation time. Maximum removal of the cadmium was obtained at a concentration of 100 mg/L with a percentage removal of 93.06% and metal uptake of 7.84 mg/g when the fungal consortium was used. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier-Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) were carried out to ascertain the effect and bioremoval activity of these fungal isolates. The study strongly affirms the use of fungal consortium for the bioremediation of heavy metals which can be harnessed to clean up the contaminated soil and water from the environment.