Bioremediation of heavy metals such as lead from portable water and soil using fungal biomass has been widely studied. The fibrous structure of fungi, <i>the mycelium</i>, hosts a plethora of biopolymers and enzymes, enables adsorption and degradation of persistent pollutants from the environment. More recently, lead immobilization by mycelium via the formation of pyromorphite has been studied as a viable approach in mitigating lead migration in the soil environment. However, employing live mycelium for heavy metal remediation has been challenging due to the associated costs in cultivating fungal biomass and other factors preventing remediation technology scaling up. Hence, employing pre-processed, mechanically robust, dried mycelium-based foams for lead remediation can be an alternative approach. Generating an understanding of the critical parameters (chemical, physical and structural) for the mycelium foam to maximize the lead sorption capacity is essential to developing high-efficiency remediation membranes. This study explores the lead-dried hyphae (mycelium fiber) physicochemical interactions at the molecular length scales.<br/><br/>We employ Optical Emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to determine the adsorption capacity and interaction kinetics of lead on mycelium hyphae. A detailed morphology and chemical composition of the adsorbed lead on the mycelium hyphae is studied using a Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The adsorption kinetic models will be employed to determine the kinetic coefficients and identify underlying adsorption mechanisms. The influence of parameters such as initial concentration of lead, pH of the environment on the sorption kinetics will be presented. Our findings demonstrate that employing dry mycelium-based membranes can be a promising approach for heavy metal remediation.

Designing mycelium foams for bioremediation of heavy metals

ACS Fall 2021

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