Studies on bioflocculant production by a mixed culture of Methylobacterium sp. Obi and Actinobacteriumsp. Mayor

BMC Biotechnology

Research Article

Uchechukwu U Nwodo¹  Anthony I Okoh¹  Ntsaluba Luvuyo¹  Leonard V Mabinya¹ 

[1] Applied and Environmental Microbiology Research Group (AEMREG), Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, 5700, Alice, South Africa;

关键词: Bioflocculant;    Consortium;    Flocculating activity;    Thermostable;    Functional groups;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6750-13-62

 received in 2013-05-03, accepted in 2013-07-25,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundBioflocculants effect the aggregation of suspended solutes in solutions thus, a viable alternative to inorganic poly-ionic and synthetic organic flocculants which are associated with deleterious health problems. Consequently, a consortium of two bacteria species were evaluated for optimized bioflocculant yield following the inadequacies of axenic cultures.Results16S rDNA nucleotide sequencing and BLAST analysis of nucleotide sequences were used to identify the bacterial species, carbon and nitrogen sources optimally supporting bioflocculant production were assessed and the purified bioflocculant characterized.Nucleotide sequences showed 97% and 96% similarity to Methylobacterium sp. AKB-2008-KU9 and Methylobacterium sp. strain 440. The second isolate, likewise, showed 98% similarity to Actinobacterium OR-221. The sequences were deposited in GenBank as Methylobacterium sp. Obi [accession number HQ537130] and Actinobacterium sp. Mayor [accession number JF799090]. Flocculating activity of 95% was obtained in the presence of Ca2+ and heat-stability was exhibited with retention of above 70% activity at 100°C in 30 min. In addition, bioflocculant yield was about 8.203 g/l. A dose of 1 mg/ml of purified bioflocculant was optimal for the clarification of Kaolin suspension (100 ml) following Jar test. FTIR spectrum revealed the presence of carboxyl and hydroxyl functional groups amongst others.ConclusionsThe mixed culture produced bioflocculant with high flocculating activity and an improved yield. The efficiency observed with jar test may imply industrial applicability.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Luvuyo et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.