288
D. Maity et al.
1 Introduction
Many pollutants that are very hazardous for the nature are discharged from chemical,
pharmaceuticals and oil refinery industries including many aliphatic and aromatic
hydrocarbons (Taghreed and El-Naas 2014). Phenol is one of them, which has the
capacity to damage the gastrointestinal tract, irritation of respiratory tracts, muscle
tremors. Damage of liver, kidney, and nervous system are the adverse effects of
phenol. Also phenol is very much hazardous to the aquatic ecosystems (Szczyrba
et al. 2016). Therefore, it is mandatory to treat the phenol and phenolic wastes
properly before disposal into the nature (Szczyrba et al. 2016; Kumar et al. 2005). The
maximum permissible level of phenol in land water is 1 ppm according to the Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and IS:2490-1974 (Cheela et al. 2014; Lathasree
et al. 2004; Saravanan et al. 2009). As per World Health Organization (WHO), the
safety limit of phenol in drinking water should not exceed 1 mg/L (Bakhshi et al.
2011; Saravanan et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2010).
Several treatment methods are there to treat phenol such as adsorption, chlorination, ozonation as well as many physicochemical methods (Szczyrba et al. 2016;
Tamer et al. 2010). Due to high cost effect of these methods and production of
toxic intermediate compounds, involvement of biological processes is necessary in
the treatment of phenol (Szczyrba et al. 2016). These biological treatments may be
biosorption, biodegradation, bioaccumulation, etc., involving bacteria, algae, fungi,
etc. Many such studies have been done previously as Mohanty and Jena (2017) did
his experiment on biodegradation of phenol using Pseudomonus sp. NBM11 that
was able to degrade up to 1000 ppm phenol completely in the temperature ranging
between 30 and 32 °C and pH 6.8–7.2. Another study was done by Parvathy and
Prabhakumari (2017) involving Pseudomonas aeruginosa, isolated from industrial
soil to remove catechol.
The current study has been carried out aiming to isolate the most potent bacterial
strain to degrade phenol and the identification of the strain.
2 Materials and Methods
2.1 Soil
Soil was collected from the local hospital area.
D. Maity et al.
1 Introduction
Many pollutants that are very hazardous for the nature are discharged from chemical,
pharmaceuticals and oil refinery industries including many aliphatic and aromatic
hydrocarbons (Taghreed and El-Naas 2014). Phenol is one of them, which has the
capacity to damage the gastrointestinal tract, irritation of respiratory tracts, muscle
tremors. Damage of liver, kidney, and nervous system are the adverse effects of
phenol. Also phenol is very much hazardous to the aquatic ecosystems (Szczyrba
et al. 2016). Therefore, it is mandatory to treat the phenol and phenolic wastes
properly before disposal into the nature (Szczyrba et al. 2016; Kumar et al. 2005). The
maximum permissible level of phenol in land water is 1 ppm according to the Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and IS:2490-1974 (Cheela et al. 2014; Lathasree
et al. 2004; Saravanan et al. 2009). As per World Health Organization (WHO), the
safety limit of phenol in drinking water should not exceed 1 mg/L (Bakhshi et al.
2011; Saravanan et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2010).
Several treatment methods are there to treat phenol such as adsorption, chlorination, ozonation as well as many physicochemical methods (Szczyrba et al. 2016;
Tamer et al. 2010). Due to high cost effect of these methods and production of
toxic intermediate compounds, involvement of biological processes is necessary in
the treatment of phenol (Szczyrba et al. 2016). These biological treatments may be
biosorption, biodegradation, bioaccumulation, etc., involving bacteria, algae, fungi,
etc. Many such studies have been done previously as Mohanty and Jena (2017) did
his experiment on biodegradation of phenol using Pseudomonus sp. NBM11 that
was able to degrade up to 1000 ppm phenol completely in the temperature ranging
between 30 and 32 °C and pH 6.8–7.2. Another study was done by Parvathy and
Prabhakumari (2017) involving Pseudomonas aeruginosa, isolated from industrial
soil to remove catechol.
The current study has been carried out aiming to isolate the most potent bacterial
strain to degrade phenol and the identification of the strain.
2 Materials and Methods
2.1 Soil
Soil was collected from the local hospital area.