Investigations on trivalent arsenic tolerance and removal potential of a facultative marine Aspergillus niger

The main objective of this work was to examine tolerance of a facultative marine Aspergillus niger isolate toward trivalent arsenic and its arsenic removal potential. When exposed to different concentrations (25, 50, and 100 mg/L) of trivalent arsenic over a period of 9 days, the test fungus exhibited luxuriant growth at all the test concentrations. There was an increase in biomass accumulation with incubation period in all cases indicating the test culture's noteworthy tolerance towards all the three test concentrations of As[III]. Removal of arsenic (mg/g biomass dry weight) was found to be highest on Day 3 in all the cases. These preliminary observations are suggestive of possible exploitation of the test fungus for bioremediation purpose. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2010