Isolation and identification of heavy metal tolerent bacterial and fungal strains from metal contaminated sites and their potential application in bioremediation

Abstract

newlineThe burning issue of today s environment problem is the release of toxic contaminants from newlinevarious man made sources resulting in contamination of natural resources of earth leading to newlinescarcity of clean water and loss of soil fertility. Among the various sources of pollution, newlinewastes from mining activities and other pollution can be regarded as the major one. newlineUnfortunately, Odisha being the hub of mining activities owing to its huge mineral resources newlinehas to bear the negative effects of mining. Hence, bioremediation is an option that offers the newlinepossibility to destroy or render harmless various contaminants using natural biological newlineactivity. Thus, the present study aimed at studying the growth and physico-chemical response newlineof some indigenous microbes (such as bacteria and fungi) isolated from Cr-ore tailings , newlineoverburden soil and Cd contaminated soil and effluents collected from Sukinda mining area newlineand Anugul Talcher Industrial estate with a view to select most effective and important newlinemicrobes which can be potentially used as a tool for bioremediation of heavy metal newlinecontaminated sites.Material, mineralogical and biological characterization based on XRD, newlineSEM and FTIR was of immense help to unravel the physical and biological properties newlineexhibited by biological and non-biological samples during the test period. newlineOut of the total bacterial and fungal isolates obtained from metal contaminated soils and newlinewaste effluent water, two bacterial species such as Bacillus flexus (C.W.B2) and Micrococcus newlineluteus (C.W.B4) were observed to be Cr(VI) tolerant. Similarly two fungal isolates such as newlineTrichoderma viride (CS.F7) and Rhizopus oryze (CW.F4) were shown to be Cr(VI) tolerant. newlineBoth the bacterial and fungal isolates were observed to be efficient towards Cr(VI) removal, newlinewhere enhanced Cr(VI) removal activity could be observed by these four bacterial and fungal newlineisolates during screening at varied concentrations of Cr(VI) metal. newlineSimilarly, in another instance, it could be observed that two bacterial isolates such as newlineStap