Biotreatment of tannin-rich beer-factory wastewater with white-rot basidiomyceteCoriolopsis gallica monitored by pyrolysis/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

Abstract

Some fractions of beer-factory wastewaters represent an important environmental concern owing to their high content of polyphenols and dark-brown color. The capacity of Coriolopsis gallica to preferentially degrade lignin has been successfully applied in our laboratory to the biotreatment and decolorization of paper-industry effluents. In this work, the ability of this white-rot fungus to degrade high-tannin-containing wastewaters is evaluated. Under all the conditions studied, effluent decolorization and chemical oxygen demand reduction achieved by C. gallica at day 12 of incubation were close to 50 and 65%, respectively. No adhesion of dark color to the fungal mycelium was observed suggesting that decolorization could be ascribed to C. gallica degradation systems. Mycelium dry-weight values showed that C. gallica is tolerant to relatively high tannin content present in the effluent samples. In the sample containing the highest effluent concentration (60% v/v), dry-weight values suggested an inhibition of fungal growth at day 6 of incubation and a further adaptation of the fungus to the stressing tannin effect at day 12 of fungal treatment. Pyrolysis/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry results showed a decrease of polyphenols pyrolysis products, mainly phenol and guaiacol, with the incubation time. All these results indicate the potential use of C. gallica in bioremediation of tannin-containing industrial wastewaters and in other applications where a reduction in polyphenols content is required.

Bioremediation of a wine distillery wastewater using white rot fungi and the subsequent production of laccase

“…Laccase is particularly attractive as a bioremediation tool, as it has a broad substrate range, high catalytic constants and the secondary substrate, molecular oxygen, is reduced to water during the reaction (Thurston, 1994). Laccase has shown remediation potential for wastewaters produced by industries such as beer brewing (Yague et al, 2000), olive milling (Jaouani et al, 2003), alcohol distilleries (Fitzgibbon et al, 1998) and dye-containing wastewaters from the textile industry (Wesenberg et al, 2003) as well as those from the paper and pulp industry (Archibald et al, 1997). There are numerous applications for laccase and for systems incorporating the white rot fungi that produce the enzyme.…”

Inhibitory activity of pine needle tannin extracts on some agriculturally resourceful microbes

“…Both the Trichoderma species tested were able to tolerate upto 3000 ppm of pine needle crude tannins without any growth inhibition, while growth was severely inhibited by increasing the concentrations beyond 3000 ppm. The ability of white rot fungi in particular to withstand and degrade high levels of tannins is well known 20 , besides several ericoid and ectomycorrhizal fungi have been found to degrade tannins 21 . Recent studies have used Rhizopus oryzae and Aspergillus foetidus for the biotransformation of tannin rich substrates 22 .…”

Laccases in Food Industry: Bioprocessing, Potential Industrial and Biotechnological Applications

“…Tannins are one of the very abundant phenolic compounds in plants, only surpassed by lignin. There are studies that shown the efficiency of Corolopsis gallica in the decolorization and a reduction of the COD of a beerindustry effluent containing a high tannins proportion (Yagüe et al, 2000). C. gallica fungus is able to grow on beer-factory wastewater because it has a high tolerance to tannins which even allows the production of laccase.…”