PHENOL BIODEGRADATION AND OPTIMISATION OF CULTURAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITIONS BY THE FREE CELLS OF NEWLY ISOLATED PHENOL DEGRADING ALCALIGENES SP. AQ5-02

Biological treatment is understood to be the most efficient technique for phenol removal paralleled to other physio-chemical methods. 16s rRNA sequencing for the identification. Mineral salt media with 0.5 g/L phenol as the only carbon source. Temperature, pH, salinity and nitrogen source were optimised. The effects of heavy metals on the percentage of phenol degradation with were tested. Accession number of KT693288 was assigned after identification. Temperature of  25- 35°C, pH 7-8 phosphate buffer were the optimum and ammonium sulphate was established to be the paramount nitrogen source at 0.4 – 0.5 g/L for isolate. The optimised conditions were found reducing the incubation period to 48 h with the ability to tolerate up to 0.2 g/L sodium chloride and degraded 50% and 1.1 g/L phenol. Meanwhile, the isolate AQ5-02 can also effectively degrade 1000 g/L phenol in the presence of heavy metals such as Cr, Zn, and Fe.