A study on the utility of immobilized cells of indigenous bacteria for biodegradation of reactive azo dyes.

Azo dyes are recalcitrant compounds used as a colorant in various industries. The pollution caused by their extensive usage has adversely affected the environment for years. The existing physicochemical methods for dye pollution remediation are rather inefficient and hence there is a dearth of low-cost, potential systems capable of dye degradation. The current research studies the biodegradation potential of immobilized bacterial cells against azo dyes Reactive Orange 16 (RO-16) and Reactive Blue 250 (RB-250). Two indigenous dye degrading bacteria sp. VITAKB20 and sp. KPB6 was isolated from textile sludge sample. Free cells of . sp. VITAKB20 degraded 92.38% of RO-16 and that of sp. KPB6 degraded 95.36% of RB-250 within 72 h under static conditions. Upon immobilization with calcium alginate, dye degradation occurred rapidly. sp. VITAKB20 degraded 97.5% of RO-16 and sp. KPB6 degraded 98.2% of RB-250 within 48 h under shaking conditions. Further, the nature of dye decolorization was biodegradation as evident by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results. Phytotoxicity and biotoxicity assays revealed that the degraded dye products were less toxic in nature than the pure dyes. Thus, immobilization proved to be a highly likely alternative treatment for dye removal.