Biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with enterobacter asburiae

Abstract

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) pollution has been found to be toxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, and immunotoxicogenic. Naphthalene, Anthracene, and Fluorene are among the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are frequently detected in wastewater from biomass gasification and refineries. In this study, industrial waste water samples were collected from three sites located in Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate, Egypt and showed presence of PAHs in different concentration varying from 0.42 to 253.1 ppb. This study's findings included the isolation and identification of Enterobacter asburiae the most proficient bacterial isolate capable of biodegrading PAHs among other 7 studied bacterial isolates. Enterobacter asburiae strain No. 1 showed the ability to biologically degrade approximately 79 %, 89.7 % and 82.8 % of Naphthalene, Fluorene and Anthracene active ingredients respectively. The results of toxicity assessment showed that PAHs byproducts after 14 days of incubation had no toxicity; consequently, there was no antibacterial activity detected against B. subtilis as a test organism. Such biological approaches used in this study can be further applied in various polluted sites to get rid of ubiquitous organic pollutants.