Evaluation of culture conditions for Allura Red degradation by Pleurotus ostreatus under solid state fermentation

Abstract

A huge number of pollutants are being released into the aquatic environment. These toxic compounds did not have, neither environmental friendly methodologies nor efficient politics, for their management and treatment. For instance, synthetic dyes are mostly used in the textile and food industries generating large volumes of coloured effluents. Particularly, Allura Red is an azo dye, widely used in several dyeing processes. The combined methodology, which includes adsorption onto agro-industrial wastes, and solid state fermentation with white rot fungi, has been implemented as a promising alternative for treating this kind of contaminants. In this work, it was determined the best conditions for Allura Red degradation throughout a full 23 factorial design under solid state fermentation. The process was carried out during 20 days at 25°C using Pleurotus ostreatus. The highest degradation percentage of 92,7 % was achieved under a Carbon: Nitrogen ratio of 20:1, a moisture content of 80% and without CuSO4 as inductor. These results suggest that the applied integrated methodology is a suitable strategy for the bioremediation of contaminated effluents.