Biodegradation of reactive dyes by some bacteria using response surface methodology as an optimization technique

Abstract

Water pollution as a result of contamination with dye-contaminating effluents is a severe issue for water reservoirs, which instigated the study of biodegradation of Reactive Red 195 and Reactive Blue dyes by E. coli and Bacillus sp. The effects of occupation time, solution pH, initial dyes concentrations, biomass loading, and temperature were investigated via batch-system experiments by using the Design of Experiment (DOE) for 2 levels and 5 factors response surface methodology (RSM). The operational conditions used for these factors were optimized using quadratic techniques by reducing the number of experiments. The results revealed that the two types of bacteria had a powerful effect on biodegradable dyes. The regression analysis revealed a good match of the experimental data to the second-order polynomial with a high coefficient of determination (R2). The optimum conditions achieved by E. coli were temperature (39.9 °C), initial concentration (99.6 mg L−1), biomass loading (14.9 VBiomass/VSolution), incubation time (1 day), pH (7.23), while the optimum conditions achieved by Bacillus sp. were temperature (28.3 °C), initial concentration (98 mg L−1), biomass loading (5.8 VBiomass/VSolution), incubation time (1 day), and pH (7.9) obtained from the desirability function.