Remoção de elementos traço por isolados de Aspergillus brasiliensis Penicillium citrinum em biofiltros

Abstract

The pollution with trace elements has become a serious problem in many countries of the world. The concentration of those elements in agroindustrial efluentes frequently exceeds the values allowed by the environmental legislation. The use of the microbial properties of biosorption, bioaccumulation and association with metal binding peptides have become an alternative to the conventional treatment methods. This is because the treatment by microorganisms of efluentes polluted with trace elements is extremely effective and economically viable in the removal of these elements, mainly when they are at low concentrations. The use of fungi, isolated from polluted environments, for the removal of those elements has been arousing much interest in the biotechnology area, probably because they possess strategies that allow them to tolerate and remove these elements from environment. This work was conducted with the objective of comparing the removal of the elements Cu, Mn and Zn, present in coffee wastewater, by the fungi Aspergillus brasiliensis and Penicillium citrinum isolated from environments polluted and non-polluted by trace elements, in erlenmeyers and using aerobic biofilters. There was high removal of all of the elements by the fungi studied, in both tests conducted. Analyses of scanning electronic microscopy with ray-X microanalysis indicate that probably the mechanism used by the fungi for the removal of these elements is primarily biosorption. These results indicate that the use of these fungal species (isolated or not from polluted environments) is a promising alternative to the conventional treatment methods for polluted efluentes.