Model Investigation of Fungal Activity on a Synthetic Biorecalcitrant Wastewater

The remediation of those effluents containing pollutants which are hard to be metabolized (biorecalcitrant) is becoming an increasingly important enviromental problem, due to the complex nature of many wastewaters. An example is the class of polyphenols. In this work, the capability of the fungus Trihcoderma viride to act as bioremediation agent for the treatment of a synthetic wastewater containing glucose, acetic acid and gallic acid (chosen as phenolic model pollutant) was characterized. The investigation was carried out in a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) with a Hydraulic Retention Time of 5 d. No settling phase was operated as this work is intended to be only a model study focused on the metabolic biomass performance (i.e., the removal of pollutant from the liquor). After few days, the organic load was completely removed, including the depletion of gallic acid from the medium. Furthermore, a 0.57 yield (C- mmol based) was achieved, thus indicating the absence of inhibition phenomena.