Microbial Denitrification of Ground Water ¨C Batch Study

Abstract

Nitrate pollution of ground water is increasing alarmingly in various countries. Biological denitrification has been found as the most inexpensive and effective technique for nitrate removal. The present work involves batch studies for heterotrophic biological denitrification using cotton as the carbon source and Pseudomonas fluorescens NCIM 5059 and Pseudomonas stutzeri NCIM 5136 as the microbial strains. A maximum removal of 91.0 mg/l at 30°C for the strain Pseudomonas fluorescens and 89.2 mg/l at 40°C for the strain Pseudomonas stutzeri was observed for an initial nitrate concentration of 100 mg/l. Both the organisms followed Monods Growth Kinetics with μ $_{max}$ values of 5.88 days $^{-1}$ for Pseudomonas fluorescens and 5 days $^{-1}$ for Pseudomonas stutzeri, respectively.