In the present study, we intended to remediate Cr(VI) with alkaliphilic bacteria Paenibacillus pabuli (JX561107) and Bacillus cereus (JX561108) isolated from alkaline industrial contaminated soil in Pondicherry. The isolated bacteria were tested for the removal efficiency of hexavalent chromium at different concentrations (50 mg/L, 200mg/L, 400mg/L). At 50 mg/L of hexavalent chromium concentration, Paenibacillus pabuli and Bacillus cereus were found to be highly efficient in removing Cr(VI) in 72 hrs at the inoculum rate of 1% of overnight grown bacterial cultures. The isolates could remove 98% and 74% of Cr(VI) within 72 hrs of treatment at 9.5 pH. When the concentration of the Cr(VI) was increased to 400 mg/L, there was a gradual decrease in Cr(VI) removal. SEM images were obtained from the tested bacteria to observe the bacterial cell surface for the changes in the morphology and EDX analysis were also carried out to confirm whether the adhered particles are of chromium.
Technology for improvement of indoor air quality by removal of allethrin, a poisonous pesticide using Polyscia fructicosa,a local house plant effectively, is researched upon in this study. Allethrin is released from burning of mosquito coil as harmful toxic fumes. Mostly Indoor Air quality (IAQ) suffers, due to lack of ventilation. Well grown Polyscia fructicosa plants were established in potting media having composition ofvermicompost, enricher, consortium of Sphingomonas and activated charcoal for enhancing phytoremediation. After favourable growth of plants & bacterial translocation to various plants parts like roots , stem , leaves etc plants were exposed to burning mosquito coil toxic smoke gases & were monitored for physically visible symptoms anomalies, pollution Indication Index (PII) and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). All tested plants showed no physical injury symptoms, PII in most of the cases was 0. Post mosquito coil smoke exposure GCMS analysis showed high levels of allethrins, up to 3.40-13.57 μg/g. When GCMS analysis of experimental plant was done after 20 days, it was observed that levels of allethrin reduced to 0. This may suggest that allethrins are metabolized by Polyscia with the help of Sphingomonas. This evidence shows that indoor potted plants with standardized size of pot and soil mixtures can be used to mitigate indoor organic air pollution. This low-cost, portable, green technology can be successfully used in close spaces and can meet with social, economic and environmental needs.
PCBs can be present in degraded soils and sediments when they have been specifically regulated for use. Because of their perceived value and outstanding physical-chemical properties, some 1.2 million tons of overall PCBs have been developed and commonly used in production such as coolants, transformer lubricants, pesticides, etc. This natural for PCBs to cause a number of individual, livestock, food, and laboratory harmful reactions in organisms. Microbes are the main players of PCB depletion, carried out under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Microbes and plants communicate strongly inside the rhizosphere. Microbes may promote plant growth under stressful conditions that are characteristic of contaminated soils. This study discusses the new insights that continue to arise from recent studies, especially regarding both the capacity for rhizosphere in bioremediation of PCBs and the deployment of simultaneous aerobic and anaerobic degradation processes.
An environmental problem in Mexico and the world, is the domestic water pollution or wastewater with hydrocarbon derivatives, such as waste motor oil, a hazardous waste according to Ley General de Equilibrio Ecologico y Proteccion Ambiental and Mexican norms NOM-001-SEMARNAT-1996, NOM-002-ECOL-1997 and NOM-003-ECOL-1997, which set maximum allowable limits of concentration: 25 ppm of hydrocarbons for discharges of wastewater and national assets, 75 ppm of wastewater to urban sewage systems and 15 ppm for treated wastewater for public reuse, respectively, that when complying with these concentration values, prevent the treatment of such domestic water. An alternative solution is biostimulation, with detergent, minerals, and oxygen that induce the aerobic heterotopic microbial population of the water, to eliminate waste motor oil and its reuse. The objective of this work was the biostimulation of domestic water contaminated by waste motor oil and to decrease it to a value lower than the maximum of Mexican norms. For this purpose, the water impacted by waste motor oil was diluted and biostimulated with the detergent Tween 80, a mineral solution and hydrogen peroxide or oxigen through the response variables: i) production of carbon dioxide by waste motor oil mineralization, ii) determination of the decrease in waste motor oil concentration, by mass-coupled gas chromatography and by Soxhlet, the experimental data were analyzed by Tukey. The results indicate that the biostimulation of the water impacted by waste motor oil with the detergent Tween 80, mineral solution and hydrogen peroxide reduced it to a value of 10 ppm, a value lower than that established by the NOM-001, NOM-002 and NOM-003, which was derived from the mineralization of waste motor oil and which showed evidence of its disappearance according to the analysis by chromatography. The above showed the biorecovery of water contaminated by waste motor oil.
Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC) is a promising thermochemical technique that could be practiced as a method of energy and material recovery. As food waste is a wet, inhomogeneous biomass, it shows desirable potential to undergo HTC, other than other thermal conversion technologies. According to the physiochemical characterization of process water, it contains nutrients such as, Magnesium (Mg2+), Ammonium (NH4+) and Phosphate (PO43-). Therefore, struvite precipitation was tested as the potential solution. Struvite yield was calculated in order to find out the efficiency and the feasibility of the precipitation method. Since struvite can be used as a fertilizer, building material or adsorbent, this will be a commercially viable application to produce value added product from HTC process water. According to analysed results, process water should have either a proper treatment mechanism or a properly designed water purification plant.
Rapidly increasing population and industrialization are the major factors in environmental degradation. Development of eco-friendly approach to reduce environmental contamination is an issue in great demand. The challenge is to build up a cost-effective and safer technology for cleaning up of contaminated environments. Bioremediation is promising new technology to decontaminate polluted surroundings. Heavy metals are the major toxic non-biodegradable environmental pollutant and their cleanup from environment is a chief concern. Several conventional physical and chemical technologies have already been employed for their removal but majority of them are not very flourishing in terms of their cost and efficacy. Therefore, we present a review on status of studies employing biological materials (microbes and plants) for heavy metal removal and recovery.
Despite their crop protection benefits, herbicides may produce a wide range of possible environmental implications due to their persistence in the ecosystem. They can enter the soil from direct spraying onto the soil surface, irrigation runoff, or release from the dead vegetation. Microbial degradation is the main mechanisms responsible for the transformation and detoxification of most herbicidal compounds in soil. The microbial availability of herbicides for biodegradation in the soil is primarily determined by factors like adsorption, desorption, biodegradation and non-extractable residue formation. Exploring these processes can lead to better understanding the efficacy and fate of the herbicide in the environment. Here we present a short review of the processes affecting the bioavailability of herbicides in the soil and their subsequent influence on the environmental fate of these compounds.
Quality and magnitude of World's food have been improved using pesticides. However, these pesticides, such as Hexachlorocyclohexane, have unfavorably affected the quality of environment and health of human beings. These not only used in Agriculture but in public health activities. Their use has been banned in developed countries, but these are still being used in some developing countries including Pakistan. Present study was aimed at sssessment, of HCHs concentration to be removed by rhizoremediation with Solanum nigrum; Solanum nigrum growth performance and identification of inoculate to be best for rhizo-microbial remediation. Pot experiments at 0, 5 and 10 mg/kg HCHs spiked soil were conducted for 90 days. Soil physicochemical properties (pH, TOC, OM, EC, MBC) were measured. Residual HCHs concentration in spiked soil was 1.73, 2.33, 3.9 and 6.1 mg/kg for 5% HCHs +Solanum nigrum+Inoculate; 5% HCHs+Inoculate; 10% HCHs Solanum nigrum+Inoculate; 10%HCHs+Inoculate respectively. While HCHs accumulation in Solanum nigrum in different treatments was 1.233, 2.133, 2.6667 mg/kg for 5% HCHs+Solanum nigrum+Inoculate; 10% HCHs+Solanum nigrum; 10% HCHs+Solanum nigrum+inoculate respectively. Strain which effectively improved the plant root and biomass was ST47 which improved root length almost 6.9 cm. Results elucidated the use of Solanum nigrum along with ST47 strain as the effective and promising remediation technique for HCHs degradation.
Ganga River of India had an age-old reputation of being the most self-purified river whose waters neither putrefy despite long storages in air-tight containers nor cause any water-borne diseases despite its direct inhalation during huge religious gatherings at mass-bathing by millions at a time. These and many other aspects were investigated and the assimilation of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), a parameter denoting the organic-related pollution status of waters, was comprehensively investigated and published in its varying forms/aspects, many for the first time, by the author. This presentation focuses, also for the first time, on correlating the river’s initial BOD with the rate constant of BOD assimilation in the Ganga and Yamuna Rivers whose evaluations were no easy jobs.
The growing population of the world and the progressive adoption of an industrialist lifestyle based, inevitably, have caused an increase in the anthropogenic impact on the biosphere. The textile industries are the most important industries in Asia and their numbers have increased. These industries have shown a significant increase in use of organic synthetic complex dyes as a coloring material. Wastewater printing and dyeing units are often rich in color, which contains residues of reactive dyes and chemicals, and requires proper treatment before being released into the environment. These compounds can be released to effluent water during washing. Examples of these compounds include surfactants, sizing, coatings and additive finishes. Sizing Compounds such as starch contribute to a higher demand for biological oxygen and the demand for chemical oxygen of the wastewater current.
