Removal of total phosphorus, ammonia nitrogen and organic carbon from non-sterile municipal wastewater with Trametes versicolor and Aspergillus luchuensis

Discharge of organic load from treated wastewater may cause environmental eutrophication. Recently, fungi have gained much attention due to their removal of pharmaceutical substances by enzymatic degradation and adsorption. However, the fungal effect in removing nutrients is less investigated. Therefore, two fungal species, the white-rot fungus T. versicolor as a laboratory strain and the mold A. luchuensis as an environmental isolate from the municipal wastewater treatment plant, were studied to determine the fungal potential for phosphorus, nitrogen, and the total organic carbon removal from municipal wastewater, carrying out a batch scale experiment to a fluidized bed pelleted bioreactor. During the batch scale experiment, the total removal (99.9 %) of phosphorus by T. versicolor was attained after a 6 h-long incubation period while the maximal removal efficiency (99.9 %) for phosphorus from A. luchuensis was gained after an incubation period of 24 h. Furthermore, both fungi showed that the pH adjustment to 5.5 kept the concentration of nitrogen constant and stabilized the total organic carbon reduction process for the entire incubation period. The results from the fluidized bed bioreactor demonstrated opposite tendencies on a nutrient removal comparing to a batch experiment where no significant effect on phosphorus, nitrogen, and total organics carbon reduction was observed. The obtained results from this study of batch and fluidized bed bioreactor experiments are a promising starting point for a successful fungal treatment optimization and application to wastewater treatment.