Abstract
Fungi have been shown to be promising candidates to be used in removal of pharmaceutical compounds during wastewater treatment processes. However, fungal growth, including removal efficiency, can be affected by several factors, such as temperature and the pH. The ability of fungal isolates to grow in the presence of carbamazepine, diclofenac, ibuprofen, and sulfamethoxazole was tested. Removal efficiency results indicated that a fungal isolate of Aspergillus luchuensis can completely (>99.9%) remove diclofenac from a synthetic wastewater media without a pH correction within 10 days of incubation. Furthermore, the results of the biosorption test for A. luchuensis indicate that this isolate uses the biosorption mechanism as a strategy to remove diclofenac. Finally, the results demonstrate that A. luchuensis can remove >98% of diclofenac in non-sterile wastewater without a pH correction immediately after biomass inoculation on biofilm carriers while Trametes versicolor requires an incubation period of at least 24 h to completely remove diclofenac. Therefore, this isolate is a promising candidate for use in removal of pharmaceutical compounds from wastewater with typical pH 7.8, minimizing a requirement of the pH correction.
Highlights
Conventional wastewater treatment technologies cannot always remove pharmaceutical substances efficiently [1]
Isolated fungi were grown on Potato dextrose (PD) agar in the presence of all selected pharmaceutical compounds, such as carbamazepine (CAR), diclofenac (DIC), ibuprofen (IBU), and sulfamethoxazole (SUL)
The fungal strain F4 showed the highest growth on PD agar with/without pharmaceutical substances not shown)
Summary
Conventional wastewater treatment technologies cannot always remove pharmaceutical substances efficiently [1]. In such cases, the pharmaceuticals are released into the environment where they negatively affect living organisms. Research into biological treatments to remove pharmaceutical substances using fungi might be an attractive topic, with an aim to develop effective and environmentally friendly wastewater treatment technology. White-rot fungi have shown to be good candidates to remove pharmaceutical substances from wastewater [7]. They are able to degrade a wide variety of pharmaceuticals due to their enzymatic processes. The growth of specific fungal strains can be affected by several factors such as the pH, temperature, concentration of inhibitory substances, Water 2020, 12, 524; doi:10.3390/w12020524 www.mdpi.com/journal/water
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