Incidence of Lipolytic Mycoflora in Domestic Wastewater

Abstract

The decomposition of domestic effluent by mycoflora was investigated. The microbial load enumerated for the period of 13 days, using standard microbiological techniques revealed the average total bacterial count between the range of 1.97 x 10⁶ CFU/ml and 1.25 x 10⁷ CFU/ml, the total coliform count have a mean range between 1.29 x 10⁶ CFU/ml and 0.56 x 10⁷ CFU/ml while the total fungal count showed a mean range of 3.17 x 10⁶ CFU/ml to 2.14 x 10⁷ CFU/ml. One hundred and twenty fungal isolates were obtained from the wastewater with the highest occurred organism as Fusarium moniliforme (19.2% occurrence), followed by Fusarium oxysporium (14.2%) and the least occurred organism Aspergillus versiculor (0.8%). The acidic pH and turbidity values obtained ranged from 3.41 - 5.98 and 1.63 - 1.79 respectively. Only 39 (32.5%) of the fungi isolates showed ability to degrade lipids with varying potentials; of which four (10.3%) were grouped among high and slight lipolysis. Among the lipolytic fungal isolates, Aspergillus spp. showed the highest occurrence of 79.5%, followed by 5.1% occurrence of Penicillium spp., Fusarium spp. and Rhizopus spp. while Absidia spp. and Thermophillus spp. showed the laeast occurrence (2.6%). It is significant that fungi associated with oil-rich wastewater also attribute the potentials of degrading the lipid component of sewages, an advantage in the treatment process.

Keywords: Mycoflora, oil-rich wastewater, lipolytic, fungi