Biodegradation of Synthetic Textile Dyes by Thermophilic Lignolytic Fungal Isolates

Synthetic dyes are extensively used in different industries like textile dyeing, paper, printing, color, photography, pharmaceutics and cosmetics. These are generally toxic and carcinogenic in nature. If not treated, they will remain in nature for a long period of time as they are recalcitrant. Among these, azo dyes represent the largest and most versatile class of synthetic dyes. Approximately 10-15% of the dyes are released into the environment during manufacture and USAge. Various methods are used for dye removal viz. physical, chemical, electrochemical and biological. Advantage of chemical, electrochemical and biological methods over physical involves the complete destruction of the dye, but chemical and electrochemical methods are found to be expensive and have operational problems. So the biological method is preferred over other methods for degradation/decolorization of dyes. In the present study, thermophilic lignolytic fungal culture was isolated from compost/soil/digested slurry/plant debris, were subjected for acclimatization to Remazol Brilliant Blue (RBB) at 0.05% concentration, in the malt extract broth (MEB). The most promising fungal isolates were used for further dye degradation studies. The results suggest that the isolates T10, T14 and T17 as a useful tool for degradation of reactive dyes

Study of Strength Variation of Concrete Using Ureolytic Bacteria

This paper presents the results of a study carried out to investigate the ability of ureolytic bacteria to enhance the compressive strength of concrete. The urease producing aerobic alkalophilic bacteria Bacillus subtlis strain MU12 was used in the present study. Ureolytic bacteria used in the present studies were isolated from various sources like cowshed, poultry farm, milk, soil and pigeon dung. All the isolates were screened for ureolytic activity on the basis of urease test. These isolated cultures were purified on phenol red agar plates.nbsp Four different cell concentration (104, 105,106,107nbspcells/ml) of bacteria were used in making the concrete mixes. Tests were performed for compressive strength of concrete cubes at 7 days, 14 days and 28 days. Inclusion of MU12 @ 107 cells/ ml in cement concrete enhanced the compressive strength in 7th and 14th days concrete samples.nbs