Morphological, Molecular Characterization, and Physico-chemical Analysis of Trichoderma yunnanense as Indigosol Golden Yellow Dye-decolorizing Fungus

Abstract

Synthetic dyes are more widely used in the batik industry; one of them is indigosol golden yellow dye. Decolorization of synthetic dye can be done by fungi. This study aimed to identify a selected fungal isolate from batik waste that was capable of decolorizing indigosol golden yellow dye based on the morphological and molecular characteristics, as well as analyze the physico-chemical characteristics of batik effluent. Based on the morphological characterization, isolate K ByT1 was similar to Trichoderma and was identified as Trichoderma yunnanense by ITS rDNA sequence (OP 420536). Isolate K ByT1 was able to optimally decolorize 96.3% indigosol golden yellow dye at a concentration of 250 ppm with an incubation time of 168 h. The growth of T. yunnanense at the incubation time of 48–100 h was in an exponential phase, in which percentage efficiency in decolorization was greatly increased. The existence of an indigosol golden yellow dye degradation process by T. yunnanense was indicated by a rough, thick mycelium and the presence of dye attached to the mycelium (SEM observation), as well as the loss of functional groups C≡C bonds, –C=N, chain N=N, aromatic nitro compound, P=O stretch, ortho aromatic, C-Cl stretch, C-S stretch, C-I stretch, and S-S stretch (FTIR analysis). T. yunnanense was able to decolorize 34.54% of batik waste with an incubation time of 240 h. The indicators of wastewater treatment efficiency – namely, biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS), sulfide, total suspended solids (TSS), pH, oil, and fat with removal percentages of 32.68, 23.74, 12.69, 56.63, 37.14, 18.21, and 52.78%, respectively.