Improved biodegradation of textile dye effluent by coculture

• Efficient degradation of textile effluent achieved using isolated coculture.
• The significant reduction in treatment time was noticed.
• Identified a possible biodegradation pathway for the effluent.
• Toxicity studies confirmed the large reduction of the treated effluent toxicity.

The present study demonstrates the de-colorization and degradation of textile effluent by coculture consisting of three bacterial species isolated from textile effluent contaminated environment with an aim to reduce the treatment time. The isolates were identified as Ochrobactrum sp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Providencia vermicola by 16S rRNA analysis. Their secondary structure was predicted and GC content of the sequence was found to be 54.39, 52.10, and 52.53%. The co-culture showed a prominent increase in the degradation activity due to the action of oxidoreductase enzymatic mechanism of laccase, NADH–DCIP reductase and azoreductase activity. The biodegradability index of 0.75 was achieved with 95% chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction in 16 h and 78 and 85% reduction in total organic carbon (TOC) and total solids was observed. Bioaccumulation of metals was identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The effective decolorization was confirmed from the results of UV–vis spectroscopy, high performance liquid chromatography and Fourier transformed infrared spectrometer analyzes. The possible degradation pathway was obtained from the analysis of liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy analysis and the metabolites such as 2-amino naphthalene and N-phenyl-1.3,5 triazine were observed. The toxic nature of the effluent was analyzed using phyto-toxicity, cell-death assay and geno-toxicity tests.

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