Biodegradation of Palm Oil Mill Effluent.
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Date
2014-12
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Abstract
Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the biodegradation capacity of selected
indigenous fungal isolates and optimization of their degradation ability using various
environmental factors such as pH, incubation temperature, nutrient concentration and
inoculums size in reducing pollution effect of palm oil mill effluent (POME) in the
environment.
Place and Duration of Study: Two fungal isolates Candida rugosa and Geotrichum
candidum used in this work were previously isolated from POME sample collected from
Starline palm oil mill industries, Umukalika, Obingwa LGA, Abia state Nigeria in previous
work of authors. The study was carried out from March to August, 2013.
Methodology: Spore suspension was prepared by adding 10 ml of 0.1% Tween 80 onto
PDA slant of 5 days old culture of Candida rugosa and Geotrichum candidum respectively.
Biodegradation of POME was carried out by inoculating 0.1ml (106spores/ml) of respective
fungal isolates into different 500 ml Erlenmeyer flasks containing 100ml each of raw
POME. They were incubated at 30ºC on a rotary shaker (200rpm). Samples were taken
every 24hrs for 144hrs to determine BOD, COD, oil & grease. Similarly, optimization of
biodegradation was carried out by studying the effect of different environmental conditions
such as different initial pH levels (4.0-8.0), incubation temperature (25-50ºC),
concentrations of soy bean (1.5-4.5% w/v) and inoculum size (0.1-0.5 v/v). The
experiments were done in triplicates.
Results: Biodegradation studies with selected indigenous fungi showed that C. rugosa was able to remove (44.6%) BOD, (13.9%) COD , (50.7%) oil and grease (O&G) while G.
candidum reduced BOD, COD, O&G by 46.9%,16.9% and 64,9% respectively after
144hrs. Optimization of degradation in POME using various environmental and nutrients
conditions revealed that at pH 8, C. rugosa showed best degradation of COD (48.6%),
BOD (74.5%), O&G (41.8%) removal while COD (59.1%), BOD (75.7%) , O&G (59.1%)
removal was observed with G. candidum treatment. The optimal incubation temperature
for degradation using each of fugal isolates was at 35ºC with 85.2% BOD , 71.8% COD
and 67.3% O&G removal for C. rugosa , 87.3% BOD and 63.4% COD for G. candidum
.The best degradation ability for C. rugosa and G. candidum were demonstrated at 3.5w/v
and 2.5w/v soybean concentrations respectively. The result also showed that increase in
inoculum size could not completely reduce oil and grease during degradation process
possibly because no single culture supports degradation optimally due to presence of
complex sugars
Conclusion: The selected fungal isolates exhibited high efficiency for removal of oil and
grease as well as organic matter from POME but required control of environmental
conditions and nutrient expansion for the effective biodegradation of POME.
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Keywords
Biodegradation, BOD, COD, oil and grease, Palm oil mill effluent
Citation
Ibegbulam-Njoku P N, Achi O K. Biodegradation of Palm Oil Mill Effluent. British Microbiology Research Journal. 2014 Dec; 4(12): 1440-1450.