Toxicity of pulp and paper industry effluent on the bioremediation activity of saprophytic and nitrifying microorganisms

Abstract

In this work, initially, the effluent of pulp and paper industry was subjected to analyse physical, chemical and physicochemical parameters and concentration of heavy metals. The detrimental effects of the effluent of pulp and paper industry on the biological activity of saprophytic and nitrifying bacteria has been studied using different volume percentages of effluent (0-6.67%). A concentration of 5.0 mg/L glucose was used as control and source of carbon for microorganisms. An increase in percentage inhibition of biological activity of microorganisms has been observed with the increasing concentration of the effluent in the proposed systems. The kinetic parameters, i.e., rate constant (K) and ultimate biochemical oxygen (L) were also evaluated using first and second order kinetics. Overall study resulted in the high resistivity of nitrifying bacteria than saprophytic bacteria to the pulp and paper industry waste.