Statistical analysis of immobilized phanerochaete chrysosporium in PVA-alginate-sulfate beads for textile wastewater treatment

Abstract

A two-level fractional factorial design was used to assess the ability of immobilized Phanerochaete chrysosporium in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-alginate-sulfate beads to treat textile effluents. The analysis from scanning electron microscope micrographs reveals that the fungus is successfully immobilized in this type of matrix. Based on the statistical analysis, it was found that pH, nitrogen concentration and beads loading are the significant factors affecting the production of ligninolytic enzymes: manganese peroxidase (MnP), lignin peroxidase (LiP) and laccase (Lac). Analysis of variance reveals that coefficient determination R2 of MnP and LiP was 0.8695 and 0.8607, respectively, and the coefficient determination of Lac was 0.9078 and reflects that model fits well to the data. The results also revealed that textile dye discoloration (associated with producing a large set of ligninolytic enzymes) occurred best at pH 7 with 10 g of the beads loaded containing P. chrysosporium (approximately 3.4067 × 107 spores) into textile wastewater without addition of nitrogen. The maximum discoloration percentage was up to 65.5%. Additionally, immobilized cells can be reused for up to five cycles as a wastewater treatment.