Erman Munir*, Nunuk Priyani, Dwi Suryanto, and Zulfatun Naimah
Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Sumatera Utara, Jl Bioteknologi No. 1 Medan 20155 Indoensia.
ABSTRACT
Wastewater of textile industry is considered as toxic waste containing various dyes and chemicals that makes itrecalcitrants. Decolorization of wastewater of the industry was conducted in our laboratorium using fungi isolated from a local forest of North Sumatera. Six potential isolates, previously screened for the ability to grow in plate media containing 100% of wastewater, were used for the study in a liquid culture condition. The results showthat all tested isolates grew. The growth response of isolates cultured in a media supplemeted with 1% glucose was about two to three times higher than that of cultures without glucose. In the first culture, the fungi grew on the surface of the media however in the latter experiment, it concentrated on the bottom of culture flaskfor all of tested isolates. Decolorization analysis showsthat all isolates were able to decolorize the wastewater. The cultures supplemented with glucose decolorized wastewater from 20% to 46%, while cultures without glucose did much higher about 56% to 92%. Furthermore, a microscopic analysis shows that dyes molecules in the wastewater were absorbed to fungal mycelia. The findings show that extraceluler molecules existed on the surface of fungal mycelia play an important role inthe absorption of dye molecules.
Keywords: Decolorization, fungal biomass, , mycelial absorption of dyes, wastewater of textile industry.