Chemical, biophysical and morphological changes of native and treated Phanerochaete chrysosporium pellets for dye bio sorption application

The pretreatment of fungal biomass in general offers an increase in the bio sorptive capacity according to the type of treatment used. Phosphoric acid and heat were the pretreatments chosen for their eminent removal of Brilliant Green (BG) from aqueous solution using waste Phanerocheate chrysosporium pellets. The results indicate that pretreatment with phosphoric acid resulted in increase in removal capacity by 92% in 30 minutes compared to 72.16 and 46.3% for heat treated and native pellets, respectively. The bio sorptive capacities of phosphoric acid and heat treatment were 7.46 and 4.1, respectively compared to 2.63 mg dye/g biomass for native pellets. The dielectric properties of the fungal wall show that both the capacitance and conductance of phosphoric acid pretreated pellets are higher than those for heat treated or native pellets. Morphological changes and FT-IR reflect noticeable cell wall changes. Desorption experiments suggest that chemisorption could be considered as the primary mechanism for dye binding to phosphoric acid and heat pretreated pellets, while physisorption could be the main mechanism for dye binding to native pellets. The study represents an in depth investigation of waste native and treated fungal pellets as possible low-cost bio sorbents