+443308187254Ameh LEO, Machido DA, Tijjani MB
In this study, sugarcane bagasse was inoculated with single and co-cultures of Microsporum and Alternaria species to assess its efficiency in the removal of Pb, Cr and Cd from Kaduna refining and petrochemical company effluent. The heavy metal content in the refinery effluent was determined using absorption spectrophotometer and gave the following values; Pb: 1.294 mg/L, Cr: 11.31 mg/L and Cd: 1.9 mg/L. Sorption capacity of inoculated/uninoculated sugarcane bagasse was assessed and one-way Analysis of Variance was used to compare means. The removal rate of the heavy metals from the various treatments, were as follows: 89-92% of Pb, 86-94% of Cr and 99% of Cd. This corresponds to adsorption of: 0.9-1.0 mg/g of Pb, 0.7-0.9 mg/g of Cr and 1.8 mg/g of Cd. Inoculated bagasse with Microsporum species had the highest removal of Pb and the least was recorded for inoculated bagasse with Alternaria species; inoculated bagasse with Alternaria species had the highest removal of Cr while uninoculated and inoculated bagasse with co-cultures had the least. However, there was no statistical difference (P>0.05) between inoculated and uninoculated sugarcane bagasse implying that the incorporation of fungal biomass as component of the sorbents did not result in any measurable difference in the percentage of the targeted metal ions removed as observed in this study.
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