Screening, biosorption and identification of indigenous fungal strains of iron mining area, Odisha, India

Abstract

Heavy metal pollution of soil, water bodies and air is one of the alarming issues in all over the world. The present investigation mainly deals with the isolation, identification and screening of the metal sorption capacity of indigenous fungal strains isolated from iron mining area, Barbil, Odisha, India. Major fungal genera observed were Aspergillus sp., Rhizopus sp., Fusarium sp., Penicillium sp., Trichoderma sp., etc. Iron tolerance studies were carried out on Potato dextrose agar and Czapekdox agar using disc diffusion method with FeCl3 concentrations ranging from 200 to 1000 mg/l. Out of 14 isolates, 6 showed maximum tolerance at 1000 mg/l. The percentage of iron removal was maximum i.e. 96.62% by Aspergillus japonicus strain VIT-SB1 at 36 hrs at pH 6 and ambient temperature without any pre-treatment of fungal biomass. Hence, the isolated fungi exhibits great tolerance to iron and can be used successfully for bioremediation purpose.

Keywords

• Aspergillus japonicus
• Biosorption
• Fungus
• Heavy metal contamination
• Iron
• Metal tolerance