Extraction, growth and immobilization of Yarrowia lipolytica yeast cells for dye effluent treatment

The removal of organic dyes from industrial wastewater remains a problem, both technically and economically. In this study, Yarrowia lipolytica yeast cells were isolated from poultry meat and immobilized using alginate. The immobilized Yarrowia lipolytica yeast was used as biosorbent to remove methylene blue (MB) dye from synthetic effluent water. The results show that maximum adsorption capacity under optimum conditions was 66.67 mg∙g-1. The equilibrium adsorption data fitted well onto the Freundlich adsorption isotherms with R2>0.99. Adsorption kinetics was of pseudo-second order process suggesting that the adsorption was a chemisorption. FTIR spectra identified typical absorption bands of a biosorbent. Sorption of MB dye on Yarrowia lipolytica yeast cells was exothermic with weak sorption interaction