BIOSORPTION OF METHYELEN BLUE FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION USING WASTES MICELIUM OF FUNGAL BIOMASS TYPE WHITE ROT FUNGI *

A waste dried mycelium of fungal biomass type white rot fungi was used to remove methylene blue dye from aqueous solution in batch mode. The equilibrium isotherm and kinetics have been investigated. Several parameters such as pH, contact time, dye concentration and biosorbent dosage were evaluated to determine the adsorption capacity and analyze the suitability of biosorption process. The equilibrium of the process was modeled using the Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and DubininRadushkevich(D-R) isotherms, while kinetic data were fitted by pseudo-first-order and pseudo-secondorder kinetic models. Kinetic experiments indicated a better fit of process to a pseudo second order model, while the equilibrium isotherm data fitted well to Langmuir isotherm with maximum biosorption capacity of 23.69 mg/g and determination coefficient R 2 equal 0.9909 compared with other isotherm models. The values of heat of sorption bT 0.6062 KJ/mol from Temkin model and mean free energy of sorption E 0.7847 KL/mol from D-R model indicated that the biosorption process was endothermic and physisorption in nature. The results show that dead biomass derived from waste of white rot fungi can be used as a good biosorbent material for removal of methylene blue from wastewater due to its low cost and high efficiency.