Biosorption of organic dye Acridine orange from aqueous solution using dry biomass of Bacillus cereus M116.

Acridine orange (AO), a basic carcinogenic fluorochrome dye, is used in the industry for staining. In this study, Gram-positive bacteria, Bacillus cereus M116 (MTCC 5521) dry biomass was tested as an eco-friendly, easily available, and cheap biosorbent for the AO dye removal. We obtained optimum biosorption of AO at a biomass concentration of 0.25 g/L and initial dye concentrations of 50-400 mg/L at neutral to basic pH within the 300 min contact time. Kinetics analysis of the biosorption process was best fitted with the pseudo-second-order reaction type. We also performed the isotherm analysis to predict the nature of the reaction taking place, which was found to follow the Redlich Peterson isotherm model with high determination coefficients. The maximum sorption capacity was 210.46 mg/g of dry biomass. The differential FTIR spectroscopic analysis of pristine and AO-treated Bacillus cereus M116 cells suggested the potential involvement of carbonyl, hydroxyl, and amine groups in the biosorption process. Also, the scanning electron microscopy of the cells after AO removal confirmed a gross surface alteration compared to the untreated cells. Furthermore, Response Surface Model (RSM) analysis with the three-way ANOVA test confirms statistically significant interactions between the dye concentration, pH, and temperature with the biosorption capacity (p < 0.001). Hence, the dry biomass of Bacillus cereus M116 was found to be an effective bio-remedial for the AO removal.