Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF TEXTILE DYE DEGRADINGMICROBES FROM GANGA (GANGES) WATER

Biswajit Saha and Tanbir Nasim

Abstract

Among the most concerned environmental pollutions that are threatening our biodiversity, water pollutionis a major one where effluents from dye-based industries. Textile industries consume a huge volume of azodyes while up to 50% of dyes find its ultimate way in the water as effluent. In India, after many festivalslike Durga Puja, idols are immersed in water. The dyes by which idols are painted affect aquatic livings.The structures of azo dyes consists coupling of diazotized amine with either an amine or a phenol and alsocontain azo linkage. Most of these dyes are potentially toxic to aquatic life and some are even carcinogenicand mutagenic to humans. Furthermore, colour of the dyestuff interrupts the aquatic environment byreducing light penetration, gas solubility and interference of phytoplankton’s photosynthesis. Unfortunately,most azo dyes are recalcitrant to aerobic degradation by bacterial cells. However, there are microorganismsthat have the ability to reductively cleave azo bonds under aerobic conditions. So our goal is to isolate andidentify some potential dye degrading bacteria from polluted Ganga water and characterize thembiochemically.