Isolation of a Most Potent Bacterial Strain from Soil for Bioremediation of Phenol

Phenol is present as the basic structural compound of many synthetic organics. This pollutant generates from different sources such as herbicides, wood preservatives, petroleum industries, pharmaceuticals, etc. US Environmental Protection Agency marked it as the priority pollutant. The objective of this study is to isolate a potent bacterial strain from soil which is capable to remove phenol from wastewater. For this, soil sample was collected from the hospital area and enriched with 500 ppm phenol for 10 days. After serial dilution of the soil sample, colonies were developed in petri plate on nutrient agar medium. The isolated colonies were transferred to the slant and screening was done to select the most potent strain in liquid nutrient medium containing 500 ppm of phenol. The most efficient strain, P25, was able to reduce almost ~99.44% of phenol concentration in 24 h, 37 °C temperature, pH 6.8. The isolated strain was acclimatized in MSM (minimum salt medium) for 2 months and habituated to remove 700 mg/L phenol concentration. Simultaneously the strain was biochemically characterized and identified by 16S rDNA sequence analysis.