Application of sugarcane bagasse for passive anaerobic biotreatment of sulphate rich wastewaters

Abstract

Biological treatment of sulphate-rich wastewaters employing dissimilatory sulphate reducing bacteria as remedial agents is an attractive technique and has gained importance in the last few years. Industrial effluents enriched with sulphates are generally deficient in electron donors. And thus cannot be treated biologically without supplementation of carbon through an external source. For scalable operations, however, the carbon source must not be expensive. In this context, present study reports the efficiency of biological sulphate reduction using sugarcane bagasse as a cost-effective carbon source. An average 0.00391 ± 0.001 gL -1 day -1 (3.91 mgL -1 day -1) sulphate reduction was observed reaching maximally to 0.00466 ± 0.001 gL -1 day -1 (4.66 mgL -1 day -1) while employing Desulfovibrio fructosovorans-HAQ2 and Desulfovibrio piger-HAQ6 in a 60-day trial of anaerobic incubation using sugarcane bagasse as growth substrate. These findings will be helpful in developing economical bioremediation processes tending to operate for a longer period of time to reduce sulphate contents of contaminated waters.

Metals-induced functional stress in sulphate-reducing thermophiles

“…SRB make morphologically and physiologically a diverse group of strict anaerobes. Under anaerobic conditions, they dissimilate sulphate to sulphide while utilizing various types of low molecular weight substrates (including various environmental contaminants) as source of carbon and energy (Willis et al 1997 ; Hussain and Qazi 2012 , 2014 ; Hussain et al 2014a , b ). The biogenic sulphide, thus produced, reacts vigorously with certain metals dissolved in contaminated waters forming sparingly soluble metal sulphides (White et al 2003 ; Costa and Duarte 2005 ; Vega-López et al 2007 ; Jameson et al 2010 ) and, as a result, the concentrations of sulphates and dissolved metals are reduced.…”

Exploited application of sulfate-reducing bacteria for concomitant treatment of metallic and non-metallic wastes: a mini review

“…Heterotrophic SRB utilize organic compounds as substrates, while autotrophic use CO 2 as the carbon source and obtain electrons from the oxidation of H 2 (Lens and Kuennen 2001 ). The latest biochemical and microbiological studies suggest that SRB can utilize a wide variety of substrates as electron acceptors and donors (Rabus et al 2006 ; Hussain and Qazi 2012 , 2014 ; Hussain et al 2014a , b ). In addition to different sulfur species (sulfite, sulfate, thiosulfate and tetrathionate) various other organic and inorganic compounds serve as terminal electron acceptors for these bacteria (Fauque et al 1991 ; Fauque 1995 ; Fauque and Ollivier 2004 ; Rabus et al 2006 ; Muyzer and Stams 2008 ).…”

“…Although hydrogen is a relatively inexpensive substrate, yet it cannot be considered an acceptable energy source because of engineering and safety measures on a commercial scale while ethanol has been reported as a cost-effective substrate (Huisman et al 2006 ). Several different natural sources of organic materials such as animal manure, sugarcane bagasse, leaf mulch, molasses, mushroom compost, fruit wastes, sawdust, sewage sludge, vegetal compost, whey and wood chips have been described as electron donors and carbon sources for the cultivation of SRB (Annachhatre and Suktrakoolvait 2001 ; Costa and Duarte 2005 ; Coetser et al 2006 ; Hussain and Qazi 2012 , 2014 ; Hussain et al 2014a , b ). Researchers have also demonstrated tannery effluents and wastes from the wine industry for supporting growth of dissimilatory SRB to economize certain bioremediation strategies (Boshoff et al 2004 ; Martins et al 2009a ).…”

“…A number of studies, based on the applications of SRB have been carried out for the treatment of simulated and real wastewaters contaminated with a range of pollutants. The latest advancement in the applications of SRB have shown that SRB are used to treat various environmental contaminants including metals (Hussain and Qazi 2016 ; Mothe et al 2016 ; Zhang et al 2016b ), metalloids (Battaglia-Brunet et al 2012 ; Altun et al 2014 ; Sahinkaya et al 2015 ) sulfates (Hussain and Qazi 2014 , 2016 ; Hussain et al 2014a ), methane (Krukenberg et al 2016 ), various non-methane hydrocarbons e.g. alkanes (Callaghan et al 2012 ; Khelifi et al 2014 ; Kleindienst et al 2014 ; Herath et al 2016 ) and alkenes (Fullerton et al 2013 ), alicyclic hydrocarbons e.g.…”

Potential of industrial by-products and wastes from the Iberian Peninsula as carbon sources for sulphate-reducing bacteria

“…Over the years several low-cost industrial by-products rich in carbon compounds have been successfully tested as sources of electron donors for SRB, as for example sugar cane molasses and bagasse from the sugar processing industry (e.g. Michailides et al 2015;Hussain and Qazi 2016). On the other hand, the use of zero-cost wastes to sustain SRB bioremediation processes is even more interesting from the economic point of view.…”