Tea saponin enhanced bioleaching of Fusarium solani to remove hexavalent chromium from soil

Abstract

Hexavalent chromium pollution is one of the most serious types of site pollution. In this study, a microorganism was screened to remove most hexavalent chromium from soil by leaching in 24 h. After ITS sequencing, the microorganism was identified as belonging to the genus Fusarium solani. The optimization experiment of leaching conditions determined that the removal rate reached the maximum 80% when the rotation speed was 200 rpm, the liquid-soil ratio was 15:1, the temperature was 35℃, and the pH was 7. The study has also shown that tea saponin can effectively strengthen the leaching of Fusarium solani to remove hexavalent chromium from the soil. Compared with tea saponin, the strengthening effect of glucose and rhamnolipid was relatively small. The removal rate of hexavalent chromium reached 85% when the added amount of tea saponin was 0.02 g/mL. The leaching solution destroyed part of the iron-manganese nodule structure of the soil, and its hydroxyl, carboxyl, and other groups complexed metal ions into the solution to achieve the purpose of removing hexavalent chromium. However, since the main crystal of the soil was SiO₂, there was no obvious change in the XRD of the soil. Toxicity test showed that after leaching, the content of hexavalent chromium leached was 0.28 mg/L (< 1.5 mg/L), which meet the entry standard of the landfill site.

Keywords: Bioleaching; Bioleaching mechanism; Fusarium solani; Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI))–contaminated soil; Tea saponin.