Biological Removal of phosphate from Synthetic Wastewater Using Bacterial Consortium

The biological phosphorus removal is a microbial process widely used for removing phosphorus fromwastewater to avoid eutrophication of water bodies. The study was aimed to screen the efficient phosphatereducing isolates and used to remove phosphate from synthetic wastewater using batch scale process. Thethree most efficient phosphate reducers were isolated and screened from eutrophic lake water and forest soilsamples. The total heterotrophic bacterial analysis of the samples showed the presence of about 38 phosphate reducers based on the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test. Among them, Bacillus sp RS-1,Pseudomonas sp. YLW-7 and Enterobacter sp KLW-2 were found to be efficient in phosphate reduction.Among the individual strains, Pseudomonas sp YLW-7 was noticed to be 68% removal in MSM with glucoseat neutral pH. The consortium with combination of Bacillus sp. RS-1, Pseudomonas sp. YLW-7 andEnterobacter sp KLW-2 was effectively removed the phosphate in the synthetic medium when compared toindividual strains. The phosphate removal was observed to be maximum of 92.5% in mineral saltsmedium (MSM) at pH 7and 5, and 63.4% in synthetic phosphate solution at neutral pH with lactose as a carbon source by the consortium after 72 h. Thus the microorganisms may use the contaminants as nutrientsand as energy sources or it may be utilized by cometabolism. Therefore, these bacterial isolates mightbe used in the remediation of phosphate contaminated environments.