Immobilization of mixed bacteria by novel biocarriers extracted from Cress and Chia seeds for biotreatment of anionic surfactant (SDS)-bearing real wastewaters.

Selection of biocarrier type is an essential element for successful bacterial cells immobilization. The present investigation aimed to evaluate a novel application of Cress and Chia seeds as biocarriers for immobilization of mixed bacterial cells. Being an environmentally friendly, non-polluting, inexpensive, and non-toxic substances makes them promising biocarriers. On the other hand, there is an increasing concern about contamination by surfactants, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is among the most commonly used surfactant. The Cress and Chia seeds were cross-linked with PVA to prepare two types of beads; CrE-PVA and ChE-PVA, respectively. The beads were utilized for the SDS biodegradation in four kinds of actual SDS-bearing wastewaters originated from; carwash garage (CWW), laundry facility (LWW), and household detergent industry (HWW), in addition to domestic wastewater (DWW). The results revealed that maximum efficiencies of SDS elimination in DWW, LWW, HWW, and CWW were 98.12, 94.32, 93.04, and 99.08%, respectively, using CrE-PVA and 99.04, 94.96, 94.71, and 99.27%, respectively using ChE-PVA. Finally, both types of beads were recycled for five times without losing their stability and efficiency for SDS biodegradation. Four kinetic models were adopted which were Blackman, Monod, Haldane, and Teissier. Results revealed that Teissier model well fitted the experimental data.