Arsenic Removal from Water by Using Bacterial Dry Biomasses

A huge population of the world is regularly drinking arsenic contaminated groundwater and as a consequence, they are suffering from different diseases, including cancer. Besides the conventional methods of arsenic remediation through physical and chemical techniques, bioremediation by using arsenic tolerable bacteria is comparatively cost-effective and wise approach. For this reason, dead biomasses of two arsenic contaminated groundwater inhabiting bacterial strains, Bacillus pacificus AKS1a and Micrococcus luteus AKS4c were used to remove arsenic from distilled water supplemented with 100 mg/L arsenite. Bioadsorption mediated arsenic removal potentialities were optimized by using various dosages of bacterial biomasses (250–1250 µg/mL) in different pH (2.0 - 11) and contact time (0.5–24 h) at room temperature. In case of strain AKS1a, in pH 9.0, 1000 µg/mL concentration bacterial biomass at 6 h contact time showed > 50% of arsenic removal. On the other hand, strain AKS4c removed > 77% of arsenic from water in pH 9.0, in 750 µg/mL of biomass dosage, at 24 h of contact time. So, these potential bacterial biomasses could be used to remove arsenic from contaminated groundwater in future.

Dried biomasses of two bacterial strains were applied for optimizing arsenic removal from water by spectrophotometric methods; among them, application of Bacillus pacificus in in arsenic bioremediation is the first-time report. They were able to remove arsenic in lower dosage along with higher efficiency in comparison to many other studies.