Background: High salinity (1-10% w/v) of tannery wastewater makes it difficult to be treated by conventional biological treatment. Salt tolerant microbes can adapt to these saline conditions and degrade the organics in saline wastewater.

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Industrial wastewaters such as tannery and textile processing effluents are often characterized by a high content of dissolved organic dyes, resulting in large values of chemical and biological oxygen demand (COD and BOD) in the aquatic systems into which they are discharged. Such wastewater streams are of rapidly growing concern as a major environmental issue in developing countries. Hence there is a need to mitigate this challenge by effective approaches to degrade dye-contaminated wastewater. In this study, several choline-based salts originally developed for use as biocompatible hydrated ionic liquids (i.e., choline sacchrinate (CS), choline dihydrogen phosphate (CDP), choline lactate (CL), and choline tartarate (CT)) have been successfully employed as the cosubstrate with S. lentus in the biodegradation of an azo dye in aqueous solution. We also demonstrate that the azo dye has been degraded to less toxic components coupled with low biomass formation.

Bioreaction calorimetric studies of degradation of the dye acid blue 113 by Staphylococcus lentus are reported for the first time. The heat released during the dye degradation process can be successfully measured using reaction calorimeter. Power time and oxygen uptake rate (OUR) profile followed each other suggesting that heat profiles could monitor the progress of the dye degradation in biocalorimetry. The shifts observed in power-time profile indicated three distinct phases of the bioprocess indicating simultaneous utilization of glucose (primary) and dye (secondary carbon source). Secretion of azoreductase enzyme enhanced the degradation process. Optimization of aeration and agitation rates was observed to be vital to efficient dye degradation. The degradative pathway for acid blue 113 by S. lentus was delineated via high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses. Interestingly the products of degradation were found to have low toxicity, as per cytotoxicity measurements.

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