Author(s)

S. N. Agnihotri

Abstract

The effluents from distilleries which contain colored pigments such as Melanoidin, Caramel and Alkaline Degradation Products (ADP) responsible for its dark brown color, high-suspended solids, high concentration of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), besides causing aesthetic damage to nearby aquatic sources, are toxic to resident flora and fauna. Anaerobic digestion (Biomethanation) of effluents containing Molasses Spent Wash is one of the treatments followed by distilleries and the resulting dark brown sludge is used as a fertilizer. The effluent after such treatment reduces COD and BOD but is still dark brown in color and is a major problem with distilleries. This paper reports that Aspergillus oryzae JSA-1, the natural isolate from soil could decolorize the undiluted biomethanated effluent (BME) effectively by simple adsorption and proved to possess a very high potential in bioremediation of different BME samples. In the study of bioremediation of BME by the column chromatography technique using fungal biomass of Aspergillus oryzae JSA-1 as a matrix, it was found that the fungal biomass could effectively reduce the total color (99.16 ± 0.09%) of BME samples as well as could reduce most of the important pollution parameters such as COD (90.78 ± 0.22%), sulphates (92.75 ± 0.12%), metals like iron (95.77 ± 0.17%), copper (79.59± 0.08%) and total dissolved solids i.e. TDS (75.59 ± 0.05%) efficiently by biosorption phenomenon. Keywords: bioremediation, fungal culture, melanoidin, decolorization, biomethanation, distillery effluent, fungal biosorption, chromatography.

Keywords

bioremediation, fungal culture, melanoidin, decolorization,biomethanation, distillery effluent, fungal biosorption, chromatography