Degradation and decolorization of textile azo dyes by effective fungal-bacterial consortium

Background Synthetic dyes are one of the main pollutants in the textile industry and bioremediation is considered as an environmentally friendly method to degrade them. Soil microbial consortia (MCs) are reported having the potential of decolorizing most of textile dyes. This study aimed at evaluating dye-degrading ability of MCs developed from fungi and bacteria. Methods and results Fungi and bacteria were isolated from the soil samples obtained from textile waste dumping site at Horana industrial zone, Sri Lanka and were screened for crystal violet (CV) and congo red (CR) dyes to develop MCs. Decolorization assay was performed for MCs along with individual isolates under variable pH levels. Metabolized products were characterized to confirm the biodegradation. A. tamari (F5) and P. putida (B3) significantly (P < 0.05) decolorized both dyes. All the MCs showed higher decolorization percentages over the individual microorganisms. Neutral pH (pH 7) was the optimum pH for the decolorization of both dyes by individual isolates and the percentages were significantly changed under the acidic and basic pH levels. However, decolorization ability by all MCs was not significantly changed with pH. Consortium with A. tamari - P. putida significantly (P < 0.05) decolourized both dyes under optimum pH 7. Conclusion All MCs showed better pH tolerance in degrading CV and CR. Thus, it can be concluded that the selected MC with A. tamari - P. putida can degrade CV and CR textile dyes efficiently into non-toxic compounds against plants under neutral pH.