Sustainable removal of Ni(II) from waste water by freshly isolated fungal strains

The release of untreated wastewater containing biotoxic substances in the form of heavy metals is one of the most crucial environmental and health challenges faced by our community. The recent advances in microbes derived removal has propelled bioremediation as a better and effective alternative to conventional techniques. Present study investigates the detoxification mechanisms evolved by the nickel (Ni(II)) resistant fungal strains, isolated from the industrial drain sites. The molecular detailing of the isolated fungal isolates confirms their identity as Neurospora crassa and Aspergillus flavus. Laboratory-scale experiments have established influence of different ranges of dose, pH, time, and metal concentration on the removal and uptake trends. Further, the variations in the carbon and nitrogen sources and agitation conditions has revealed the best substratum for achieving optimum results for the industrial exploitation of these microbes. SEM micrographs and FTIR spectra elucidates the superficial alterations on the mycelium of the fungal isolates and the involvement of active functional groups in the bioremediation of Ni(II) respectively. Biosorption of Ni(II) on living biomass has followed the Langmuir adsorption model. The findings of the study have provided a promising insight in the simultaneous action of different mechanistic removal approaches to explore a large scale removal of Ni(II) from the waste generating industries.