Remazol Black decoloration by Burkholderia cepacia immobilized in sol-gel silica matrices

TUTTOLOMONDO MARÍA VICTORIA; VILLANUEVA MARÍA EMILIA; MANFREDI, GASTÓN; ALVAREZ GISELA; DESIMONE MARTÍN; DÍAZ LUIS

Portero de los Funes, San Luis

Congreso; XLVII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2011

Among many pollutants, textile industry effluents are the major source of environmental pollution. Synthetic dyes are widely used in the textile, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries. These effluents are a serious concern because of their adverse effects on many organisms and ecosystem as a whole. Even small concentrations of dye are highly visible and can be toxic to aquatic organisms. Azo dyes are the largest and most versatile class of dye but due to their chemical properties, they are not easily degradable under natural conditions and thus, are not thoroughly removed from water by conventional wastewater treatment systems. In this work we propose the use of sol-gel silica matrices obtained from sodium silicate to immobilize Burkholderia cepacia, a Remazol Black (RB) decolorizing bacteria. The advantages of bacteria immobilization are the possibility to recycle the beads, protect bacteria and reduce their presence in the resulting fluid. Bacteria were cultured aerobically at 35 ºC in aqueous solutions of RB at concentrations from 1% to 0.005%. RB was measured directly by absorption at 597 nm. Immobilized B. cepacia was resistant to 2% of RB. It also reduced more than 80% of RB within 24 hs when 0.005% was added. Further studies are being performed to estimate the reutilization and half-life of the immobilized bacteria.