Microbial degradation of textile industrial effluents

Abstract

Textile waste water is a highly variable mixture of many polluting substance ranging from inorganic compounds and elements to polymers and organic products. To ensure the safety of effluents, proper technologies need to be used for the complete degradation of dyes. Traditionally, treatments of textile waste water involve physical or chemical methods. But both physical and chemical methods have many short comings. Biodegradation is an eco friendly activity it can produce little or no secondary hazard. In this work, the in situ degradation of textile industrial effluent was carried out. The degradation of two different dyes, blue and green colour has been studied. The isolated organism which showed the ability to degrade dye was characterized and identified as Paenibacillus azoreducers using various biochemical techniques. The degradation of dye was confirmed via the decolourisation assay and by the measurement of COD and BOD values. A trickling bed reactor was designed and the treatment of effluent from a textile industry was effectively carried out.

Key words: Biodegradation, textile wastewater, secondary hazard, Paenibacillus azoreducens, decolourisation, trickling bed reactor.