Bioremediation of Phenol by Mutated and Immobilized Aspergillus and Penicillium Species

Amany G Ibrahim,Lujin S Al-Ghamdi

doi:10.15835/nsb11410581

Amany G Ibrahim, Lujin S Al-Ghamdi

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15835/nsb11410581

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Abstract

Phenol and its chemical derivatives are essential for production of polycarbonates epoxies, bakelite, nylon, detergents, herbicides, and numerous pharmaceutical drugs. In order to increase the biodegradation of phenol by fungi, fungal strains (Aspergillus niger, Penicillium griseofulvum and Aspergillus terreus), were isolated from different contaminated sites in Saudi Arabia such as Jeddah Governate, the second industrial city of Jeddah, some garbage collection places, gas stations and Red Sea), then screened for phenol degradation. For the first time in Saudi Arabia, biodegradation of phenol by fungi is improved by mutation as well as immobilization of fungi above calcium alginate. The isolated fungal strains (Aspergillus niger, Penicillium griseofulvum and Aspergillus terreus), were mutated physically (UV) and chemically (Ethidium bromide), also immobilized in alginate beads and its phenol degradation efficiency was observed. The degradation was increased many fold after immobilization, but after mutation some mutants appeared highly degradation rate for the phenol such as Aspergillus niger, and Penicillium griseofulvum but Aspergillus terreus appeared highly degradation rate for the phenol only after exposure to UV for 5 and 10 mins only than the wild strains. In addition, phenol degradation was increased with increase the fungal disk size of the tested strains.

Highlights

Phenol is a structure unit for the production of pharmaceuticals, such as, aspirin (Busca et al, 2008; Acosta et al, 2018)
To increase and enhancement the efficiency of biological treatment of phenol, the present study focused on mutation chemically and physically and immobilization of fungal strains that were isolated previously (Ibrahim and ELGamdi, 2019), using Ca-alginate beads
C- Immobilization of the fungal strains in alginate beads Encapsulation of A. niger, P. griseofulvum and A. terreus into Ca- alginate beads were performed and the results are shown in Table 2 and Fig .5, which revealed that the degradation rate of phenol was increased by immobilized cells more than the free cells that appeared with reduction in absorbance

Summary

Introduction

Phenol is a structure unit for the production of pharmaceuticals, such as, aspirin (Busca et al, 2008; Acosta et al, 2018). Phenol can be used with chloroform (a commonly-used mixture in molecular biology for DNA & RNA purification from proteins), used for cell disruption and lysis purpose (Sambrook and Russell, 2001). It can be absorbed through the skin, inhalation and by swallowing (Germain et al, 2019). Ingestion of phenol for a prolonged period of time causes mouth sore, diarrhea, excretion of dark urine and impaired vision at concentrations levels ranging between 10 and 240 mg/L (Álvarez-Torrellas et al, 2017)

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