| Summary: | Phenols and its derivatives are environmental pollutant commonly found in many
industrial effluents. It is toxic in nature and causes various health hazards. However, they are
poorly removed in conventional biological processes due to their toxicity. Immobilization of
microbial cells has received increasing interest in the field of waste treatment and creates
opportunities in a wide range of sectors including environmental pollution control. Live cells
of phenol-degrading yeast, Candida tropicalis RETL-Cr1, were immobilized on coconut husk
and loofah by adsorption. The immobolized particle was packed into biofilter column which
used for continuous treatment of a phenol with initial phenol concentration of 3mM. Both
loofah and coconut husk have similar phenol biodegradation rate of 0.0188 gL-1h
-1 within 15
hours to achieve a phenol removal efficiency of 100 %. However loofah have lower biomass
concentration of 4.22 gL-1 compared to biomass concentration on coconut husk, 4.39 gL-1
.
Coconut husk contain higher biomass concentration which makes it better support material
than loofah. Fibrous matrices such as loofah and coconut husk provide adequate supporting
surfaces for cell adsorption, due to their high specific surface area. Therefore, coconut husk
and loofah being an agricultural waste product have the potential to be used as low-cost
adsorbent and supportmatrix for microbial culture immobilization for the removal of organic
pollutant from wastewater.
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