Fungal treatment for liquid waste containing U(VI) and Th(IV)

Four fungal and one bacterial isolates were isolated from a liquid waste sample of Nuclear Material Authority. Those dried biomasses were screened for uranium (U) and thorium (Th) adsorption efficiency where the most potent isolate was identified according to sequence similarities and phylogenetic analysis as Aspergillus niger LBM 134. Using U or Th synthetic solutions many factors were investigated for controlling the biosorption process to conduct the optimum process conditions (the solution pH, contact time, elemental initial concentration, biomass dosage, and sorption temperature). A. niger LBM 134 dried biomass was examined ESEM-EDX and the FTIR techniques before and after the sorption process, also the data were handled by different kinetics and isothermal models. Application on the real liquid waste revealed that the bio-uptake capacities were 18.5 and 11.1 mg/g for U and Th respectively.