Biodegradation Potential of Fungi Penicillium Isolated from Synthetic Polymeric Materials

Abstract

Fungi Penicillium isolated from synthetic polymers were investigated for their ability to degrade industrial or naturally occurring wastes such as paraffin, chitin, cellulose, leather, pectin, skim milk, sunflower oil, and starch. All the isolates grew quite well on paraffin. On the media with cellulose and leather, fungal growth reached 98%; on media with chitin, up to 58%. The use of the tested substrata shows that most of these fungi, isolated from materials hardly suitable to fungal nutritive requirements, can utilize different carbon (C) sources. This is especially true for Penicillium citreonigrum and P. oxalicum, which demonstrated good growth on paraffin, leather, and chitin. The fungi P. chrysogenum, P. spinulosum, P. verruculosum 2, and P. variabile also developed well on the majority of the substrata. These fungi can be considered good decomposers of materials occurring in nature as wastes.