Bioelectricity production and desalination of Halomonas sp. – the preliminary integrity approach

ABSTRACT

Production of microbial electricity using a newly isolated strain from seawater was the aim of this study. Bioelectricity is the byproduct pertaining to desalination treatment by microbial contribution. The halophilic microorganism was isolated from coastal areas in Tuticorin. The organism maximally intakes salt up to 20% was screened and characterized by gram staining, biochemical tests and 16S rRNA sequencing. The 16S rRNA sequence of the selected isolates were analyzed and compared with 16S rRNA sequence of other bacteria using the BLASTn search tool. The sequenced organism was identified as Halomonas sp. which was submitted to the national repository; the organisms were given accession numbers and the strain was identified as Halomonas sp. KVCET5 (KF734085 899 bp) and Halomonas salina KVCET6 (KJ461947 616 bp). The screened and characterized organism was taken for production of bioelectricity. The microbial fuel cell was designed with carbon and a graphite electrode, and consists of a cathodic and anodic chamber. The salt water was placed in the anodic chamber, and chlorophyll extracted from spinach acts as a free cation radical which is placed in the cathodic chamber to increase the efficiency of electricity in terms of voltage from 0.3 to 1.4 V on the 5^th day of successive batch bioelectricity production.

KEYWORDS:

• Halomonas sp.
• Halomonas salina
• chlorophyll
• microbial fuel cell
• bioelectricity

Acknowledgements

We thank our management, principal, advisor, Head of the Department, and faculty from the biotechnology department for providing the facilities. We also thank the R&D division, UPES, Dehradun, for testing the samples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.