(7c) Preparation of a Hybrid Biosorbent Using Self-Immobilizing Mycelia and Magnetic Nanoparticles

Many porous materials have heavy metal ion or dye adsorption abilities. Natural materials such as clay, ash and various biomasses have been investigated as cheap adsorbents for water treatments, and the adsorption is mainly based on the affinity between biosorbents and adsorptive pollutants, which is usually due to the functional groups such as sulfonate, phosphonate and amine existed on the surface of biomass materials. Meanwhile, many biosorbents used are in suspended forms, which may be not effective and make the post separation of these biomasses from treated water extremely difficult. Moreover, those biomasses left in the water may cause secondary pollution.

In order to overcome this drawback, research used immobilized microorganisms as biosorbents for easy separation. Magnetic collection is also an easy and efficient way to collect adsorbents. In addition, the combination of magnetic nanoparticles with various immobilized biosorbents can form hybrid adsorbents with magnetic induction heatable properties. This temperature remote controlling feature is useful for pollutant adsorption processes. In this study, a marine-derived fungus was used for dye adsorption from aqueous solutions. This fungus had strong pellet forming ability even with high concentrations of particles in culture media, which is not possible for many other fungi reported. Magnetic mycelial pellets were prepared by adding Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in culture media, which can be imbedded into the mycelial pellets during hyphal growth. Properties of the self-immobilized biosorbent were characterized, and its dye adsorption capacity was investigated with adsorption kinetics studied under magnetic induction heating. The results showed that the solution heated by magnetic induction had faster adsorption rates and less energy consumption.