Research Article
Decontamination of Domestic Wastewater Using Suspended Individual and Mixed Bacteria in Batch System
Ebtesam El Bestawy1,2*, Ahmed AL-Hejin2, Ranya Amer3 and Rzaz Abdulrazaq Kashmeri2 | |
1Department of Environmental Studies, Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt | |
2Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah 21551, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia | |
3Department of Environmental Biotechnology, City for Scientific Research and Technology Applications, Alexandria, Egypt | |
Corresponding Author : | Ebtesam El Bestawy Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science King Abdul Aziz University Jeddah 21551, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tel: 203-4295007 Fax: 203-4285793 E-mail: ebtesamelbestawy@yahoo.com |
Received May 16, 2014; Accepted June 16, 2014; Published June 20, 2014 | |
Citation: El Bestawy E, AL-Hejin A, Amer R and Kashmeri RA (2014) Decontamination of Domestic Wastewater Using Suspended Individual and Mixed Bacteria in Batch System. J Bioremed Biodeg 5:231. doi:10.4172/2155-6199.1000231 | |
Copyright: © 2014 El Bestawy E, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
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Abstract
The study aimed to investigate the ability of indigenous and/or exogenous free living bacteria either individual or as mixed culture to decontaminate raw domestic wastewater. Seven indigenous and two exogenous bacteria were selected and identified using traditional as well as molecular characterization, then used in the batch remediation system for seven days. Results indicated that the raw wastewater was relatively of high strength according to the levels of all the tested parameters. Treatment efficiency was time and bacterial species dependent. In general, the mixture of the tested bacteria considered the most efficient for the removal of all the tested parameters. Pseudomonas stutzeri (PS) was perfect for removing organic matter (BOD and COD) while the mixed culture considered the most efficient for removing fecal coliform (≈100%) brought them to safe (60, 100 mg/l and ≈ 0.0 CFU/ml respectively) discharge limits (MPL) stated by the Egyptian and Saudi Environmental laws that regulate discharging of domestic and industrial wastewater into fresh and saline open water. In addition, high removal efficiencies of TSS, FOG and TC recording 39.1, 90.0 and 99.0% respectively were achieved by B. amyloliquefaciens (S1), E. coli (Rz6) and the mixed culture respectively. However, their residuals still higher (23.3, 20 and 200 fold respectively) than their MPLs for the safe discharge due to the short treatment course. Therefore, longer treatment time and/or using biofilm of the selected bacteria are highly recommended to bring the contaminated domestic effluent it to the safe limits for the environment. The present study confirmed the ability of the selected bacteria for the removal of the target contaminants especially pathogenic bacteria (coliform) and thus can be manipulated efficiently to decontaminate polluted systems providing the optimum degradation conditions.