Characterization of pentachlorophenol degrading bacterial consortium from chemostat.

A microbial consortium was developed by continuous enrichment of bacterial population isolated from sediment core of pulp and paper mill effluent in mineral salts medium (MSM) supplemented with pentachlorophenol (PCP) as sole source of carbon and energy in the chemostat. The enriched consortium contained three bacterial strains identified as Escherichia coli (PCP1), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PCP2) and Acinetobacter sp. (PCP3) by morphological and biochemical tests, further confirmation was done using 16S rDNA sequence analysis. The potency of bacterial isolates in degradation of PCP was monitored in terms of growth and utilization of PCP as substrate with spectrophotometer and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) analysis. The strains were tested for their utilization of various organic compounds. The strain PCP3, showed higher potency to utilize PCP as sole source of carbon and energy than PCP1 and PCP2. The bacterial strain were able to utilize PCP through an oxidative and reductive route as indicated with the formation of tetrachloro-p-hydroquinone (TeCH), 2-chloro-1,4-benzenediol and 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol, respectively.