RESUMO
During and after the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the use of personal care products and disinfectants increased in universities worldwide. Among these, quaternary ammonium-based products stand out; these compounds and their intermediates caused substantial changes in the chemical composition of the wastewater produced by these institutions. For this reason, improvements and environmentally sustainable biological alternatives were introduced in the existing treatment systems so that these institutions could continue their research and teaching activities. For this reason, the objective of this study was to develop an improved culture medium to cultivate ammonium oxidising bacteria (AOB) to increase the biomass and use them in the treatment of wastewater produced in a faculty of sciences in Bogotá, D.C., Colombia. A Plackett Burman Experimental Design (PBED) and growth curves served for oligotrophic culture medium, and production conditions improved for the AOB. Finally, these bacteria were used with total heterotrophic bacteria (THB) for wastewater treatment in a pilot plant. Modification of base ammonium broth and culture conditions (6607 mg L-1 of (NH4)2SO4, 84 mg L-1 CaCO3, 40 mg L-1 MgSO4·7H2O, 40 mg L-1 CaCl2·2H2O and 200 mg L-1 KH2PO4, 10% (w/v) inoculum, no copper addition, pH 7.0 ± 0.2, 200 r.p.m., 30 days) favoured the growth of Nitrosomonas europea, Nitrosococcus oceani, and Nitrosospira multiformis with values of 8.23 ± 1.9, 7.56 ± 0.7 and 4.2 ± 0.4 Log10 CFU mL-1, respectively. NO2- production was 0.396 ± 0.0264, 0.247 ± 0.013 and 0.185 ± 0.003 mg L-1 for Nitrosomonas europea, Nitrosococcus oceani and Nitrosospira multiformis. After the 5-day wastewater treatment (WW) by co-inoculating the three studied bacteria in the wastewater (with their self-microorganisms), the concentrations of AOB and THB were 5.92 and 9.3 Log10 CFU mL-1, respectively. These values were related to the oxidative decrease of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), (39.5 mg L-1), Ammonium ion (NH4+), (6.5 mg L-1) Nitrite (NO2-), (2.0 mg L-1) and Nitrate (NO3-), (1.5 mg L-1), respectively in the five days of treatment. It was concluded, with the improvement of a culture medium and production conditions for three AOB through biotechnological strategies at the laboratory scale, being a promising alternative to bio-augment of the biomass of the studied bacteria under controlled conditions that allow the aerobic removal of COD and nitrogen cycle intermediates present in the studied wastewater. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-024-03961-4.
RESUMO
Drought is a global problem for crop productivity. Therefore, the objective of this research was to evaluate five dry-Caribbean Bacillus spp. strains in drought stress amelioration in maize plants. Maize seeds were single-strain inoculated and sown in pots under greenhouse conditions. After 12 days, plants were subjected to 33 days of drought conditions, i.e., 30% of soil field capacity, and then collected to measure leaf and root dry biomass, plant height, antioxidant enzymes, proline accumulation, and P+, Ca2+, and K+ uptake. Results correlated drought stress amelioration with the inoculation of Bacillus spp. strains XT13, XT38 and XT110. Inoculated plants showed increases in dry biomass, plant height, and K+ and P+ uptake. The overall maize antioxidant response to bacterial inoculation under drought stress showed dependence on proline accumulation and decreases in ascorbate peroxidase and glutathione reductase activities. Moreover, results suggest that this stress amelioration is driven by a specific plant-strain correlation observed in antioxidant response changes in inoculated plants under stress. Also, there is a complex integration of several mechanisms, including plant growth-promotion traits and nutrient uptake. Hence, the use of dry-Caribbean plant growth-promoting Bacillus strains represents an important biotechnological approach to enhance crop productivity in arid and semi-arid environments.
