Biological self-assembled hyphae/starch porous carbon composites for removal of organic pollutants from water

In this work, carbonized quinoa starch (CQS) was incorporated in the growth of the fungal hyphae (FH) of Aspergillus niger (AN) and Myrothecium verrucaria (MV), to form FH/CQS composites through a biological self-assembly method. The two hyphae/starch porous carbon materials (PCCQS-AN and PCCQS-MV) were successfully prepared using the FH/CQS as templates. The characterization results showed that PCCQS-AN and PCCQS-MV had higher specific surface areas and pore volumes than the quinoa starch-based porous carbon (PCQS). Adsorption experiments involving a synthetic dye, Rhodamine B (RhB), and an antibiotic, tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH), as model pollutants revealed that the adsorption capacities of PCCQS-AN and PCCQS-MV were higher than those of PCQS. In addition, the removal rates of RhB and TCH by PCCQS-AN and PCCQS-MV remained above 50% after 5 cycles, which were higher than that of PCQS. This study proves that the biological self-assembly approach is an advanced method, and provides a new feasible direction for the research and development of other microorganism composites.