I have an unidentified halophilic bacterial consortium that has been obtained through subculturing natural hyper saline polluted soil/water samples in sterile nutritive waste water with salt concentration in the range 13-15%. I am going to use this consortium to treat a waste water with 20% salt content. Can I use this consortium to treat waste water containing 20% salt? If I can, Do I need to adapt them to this higher salt concentration? If yes, what would be a suitable adaptation protocol?
Hi Negar Basereh,
probably what it would be convenient to do is exposing your halophilic consortium to higher concentrations of salt content "step by step" until you reach 20% (e.g.: 16, 17, 18, 19 and finally 20%).
Once the halophilic consortium has been exposed for some time to a media with 20% salt, you can use it to treat the WW with such salt content.
Additionally, we have conducted a similar "adaptation" procedure by taking a natural inoculum containing a probable halophilic consortium and we have used it to treat a synthetic saline WW.
Have a look at the papers attached and feel free to ask for any question.
Regards
Article Specific and efficient electrochemical selection of Geoalkal...
Article Long-term continuous production of H2 in a microbial electro...
Article Microbial characterization of anode-respiring bacteria withi...
Dear Negar Basereh,
I am a microbiology who works with halotolerant bacteria treating grenhouse gasses. If your consortium is conformed by halophilic bacteria which previously were able to grow in natural hyper saline polluted soil/water samples, this consortium will probably treat the high salinity waste-water inmediatelly after the enrichment However, to avoid a long lag phase I recomend you to grow the halophilic consortia at 20 % of salt in sterile nutritive medium for at least three growth cycles and after that start the waste water treatment.
I hope this information is usefull for you,
Good luck
Dear Mr. charman, Thank you very much for your answer to my question. Regarding your explanations, I have some further questions. I am working on biological treatment of yeast extract amended hypersaline oilfield produced water (PW) with13% salinity. PW consists of many different organic compounds. During shake flask experiments, we observed the stationary phase of growth (as quantified by optical density) after 24 hours from the start of cultivation; however, at the end of this period we only had up to 40% reduction in COD. The COD removal did not significantly improve even when – in some runs - we extended the cultivation up to 7 days. In your experience what could be the potential reasons for the occurrence of the stationary phase? (The concentration of soluble microbial products (SMP) at the end of cultivation was negligible so this explanation was effectively ruled out).
I should point out that we added 0.1% yeast extract to the real PW since we had little growth when the natural halophilic “consortia” was added to unamended PW. However, we eventually want to work with PW which is amended with inexpensive and preferably inorganic nutrients. Also, our eventual goal is biological treatment of ≥ 20% salinity PW (hence our original question).
I really appreciate your help.
- Badges
- Science topic