Ability of Ganoderma lucidum mycelial pellets to remove ammonia and organic matter from domestic wastewater

Abstract

In this study, we explored the ability of wild-Serbian Ganoderma lucidum mycelial pellets (GLMPs) in treating synthetic domestic wastewater in a batch reactor under various operating conditions. The GLMPs produce non-hazardous by-products, are environmentally sustainable and able to produce in mass bulk with consistent quality. Riding on the highly efficient of treatment of industrial (textile) wastewater using GLMPs, similar high efficiency is foreseen for domestic wastewater as a green alternative treatment process. The optimal performance of GLMPs in similar synthetic domestic wastewater with a Carbon-to-Nitrogen (C/N) ratio of 16.7:1 was evaluated under three operational conditions. The C/N ratio was chosen based on the urban domestic wastewater characteristic during high peak flow with an initial Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of 533 mg/L and ammonia–nitrogen (NH3–N) content of 30 mg/L. The operational parameters of agitation speed (0 rpm, 25 rpm, 50 rpm, and 100 rpm), environmental temperature (25 °C, 30 °C, 35 °C, and 40 °C), and GLMP inoculum percentage (GIP) (0%, 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, and 1.00%) were chosen for the experiment. In the experiment, the agitation speed of 100 rpm and the environmental temperature of 25 °C showed the best performance of the GLMPs within 15 h of retention time with a percentage removal of 92.9% for COD and 93.8% for NH3–N. Furthermore, a high volume of GIP in the batch reactor had an insignificant impact on the performance in the same concentration of wastewater, and 0.25% GIP was the volume used to treat the domestic wastewater.