BIOTRANSFORMATION OF TEXTILE DYES: A BIOREMEDIAL ASPECT OF MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Presence of huge amount of salts in the wastewater of textile dyeing industry is one of the major limiting factors in the development of an effective biotreatment system for the removal of dyes from textile effluents. Large number of textile industries are located on the coastal areas due to ease of transport to the various places in world and help in building nations economy, but on the contrary the effluents released from these industries are proving a great problem for the marine life. Therefore, industrial effluents containing dyes must be treated before their safe discharge into the environment. There are various physiochemical methods are conventionally used. These methods are effective but quite expensive leading to the production of solid sludge. Bacterial spp. capable of thriving under high salt conditions could be employed for the treatment of saline dye-contaminated textile wastewaters. Most of the Scientists used chemical coagulation, Flocculation and Precipitation techniques for the removal of dye colors from waste waters. But this method is not cost beneficial as it generates huge amount of Sludge and to dispose the sludge is major problem. The physical methods are also not cost effective. So only biological treatment using acclimatized microorganisms could remove 99-100% dye colour from wastewater. Hence now a day most of the workers concentrated on biotransformation of textile azo dyes by adapted organisms. The use of co substrates also slightly increased the decolorization of dye solution. Some scientists showed that the products of dye degradation are not toxic to biological system. Products formed can be determined by Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) technique, Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) etc.