Abstract
The purpose of this study was to isolate and characterise toxic element-resistant bacteria from acid mine drainage water and to apply them in the bioremediation of industrial effluent, as well as to identify optimal effluent:nutrient concentration for onsite biostimulation strategy. Wastewater samples were collected from acid mine drainage and industry. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was employed for elemental composition analysis. Isolated bacterial strains were characterised using molecular methods. Bioremediation assays were employed to determine the extent of bacterial tolerance and removal of toxic elements using a biostimulation strategy employing minimal salt medium (MSM) at varied concentrations and positive and negative controls of only MSM and industrial effluent, respectively. Two bacterial strains demonstrated resistance to toxic elements, Bacillus sp. MGI101 and Lysinibacillus sp. MGI102 both isolated from the AMD sites. However, no observable growth of toxic metal-resistant bacteria was obtained from the industrial effluents. Bacterial strains MGI101 and MGI102 demonstrated high resistance to target toxic elements during the screening and tolerance assays. Remarkably, Bacillus sp. MGI101 demonstrated greater ability to remove toxic elements including arsenic, chromium, zinc, copper and aluminium in undiluted solutions of the industrial effluent, with its highest removal capacity observed at > 60% for arsenic and aluminium. Both Bacillus sp.MGI101 and Lysinibacillus sp. MGI102 demonstrated varied abilities for the removal of toxic elements from dilution concentration of effluent mixed with MSM. However, the optimal dilution ratio observed in this experiment was 5:15 (effluent:MSM). Overall results demonstrated that isolated bacterial strains have the potential to be employed in bioremediation programmes of acid mine drainages and multi-element contaminated water.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology class of 2016 and 2017 of the Pearson Institute of Higher of Education for their individual contributions to this research in the preliminary and validation phases of the experiments. Language editing was provided by Kevin Levy.
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Although there was no direct and formal funding provided by either institution, this work was supported by the Pearson Institute of Higher Education in the procurement of consumables and equipment for the first phase of work. The second phase of work was done using equipment from the Eureka Laboratories of the University of South Africa.
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Ijoma, G.N., Selvarajan, R., Oyourou, JN. et al. Exploring the application of biostimulation strategy for bacteria in the bioremediation of industrial effluent. Ann Microbiol 69, 541–551 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-019-1443-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13213-019-1443-6