RESUMO
Halophytic plants can tolerate a high level of salinity through several morphological and physiological adaptations along with the presence of salt tolerant rhizo-microbiome. These microbes release phytohormones which aid in alleviating salinity stress and improve nutrient availability. The isolation and identification of such halophilic PGPRs can be useful in developing bio-inoculants for improving the salt tolerance and productivity of non-halophytic plants under saline conditions. In this study, salt-tolerant bacteria with multiple plant growth promoting characteristics were isolated from the rhizosphere of a predominant halophyte, Sesuvium portulacastrum grown in the coastal and paper mill effluent irrigated soils. Among the isolates, nine halotolerant rhizobacterial strains that were able to grow profusely at a salinity level of 5% NaCl were screened. These isolates were found to have multiple plant growth promoting (PGP) traits, especially 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid deaminase activity (0.32-1.18 µM of α-ketobutyrate released mg-1 of protein h-1) and indole acetic acid (9.4-22.8 µg mL-1). The halotolerant PGPR inoculation had the potential to improve salt tolerance in Vigna mungo L. which was reflected in significantly (p < 0.05) higher germination percentage (89%) compared to un-inoculated seeds (65%) under 2% NaCl. Similarly, shoot length (8.9-14.6 cm) and vigor index (792-1785) were also higher in inoculated seeds. The strains compatible with each other were used for the preparation of two bioformulations and these microbial consortia were tested for their efficacy in salt stress alleviation of Vigna mungo L. under pot study. The inoculation improved the photosynthetic rate (12%), chlorophyll content (22%), shoot length (5.7%) and grain yield (33%) in Vigna mungo L. The enzymatic activity of catalase and superoxide dismutase were found to be lower (7.0 and 1.5%, respectively) in inoculated plants. These results revealed that halotolerant PGPR isolated from S. portulacastrum can be a cost-effective and ecologically sustainable method to improve crop productivity under high saline conditions.
RESUMO
The development of economic and recyclable adsorbents for removing pollutants from contaminated water is gaining increasing attention. Agro residue or nature-based material sourced absorbents could revolutionize the future of wastewater treatment. Hence in this study, nanocellulose was synthesized from coconut husk fiber and immobilized onto chitosan to form hydrogel beads. The BET surface area and zeta potential of the adsorbent nanocrystalline cellulose-chitosan hydrogel (NCC-CH) bead was 25.77 m2 g-1 and +50.6 mV, respectively. The functional group analysis also confirmed that the adsorbent had functional groups appropriate for the adsorption of textile dyes. The adsorption performance of NCC-CH and also the influence of initial dye concentration, adsorbent dose, pH, and contact time was evaluated by batch adsorption studies with crystal violet (CV) and methylene blue (MB) dyes. The most favorable operational conditions achieved through I-optimal design in response surface methodology were 0.5 g NCC-CH, 1 h, 9 pH, and 60 mg L-1 for CV removal (94.75%) and 0.13 g NCC-CH, 1 h, 9 pH, and 30 mg L-1 for MB removal (95.88%). The polynomial quadratic model fits the experimental data with an R 2 value of 0.99 and 0.98 for CV and MB removal, respectively. The optimum depiction of the isotherm data was obtained using the Freundlich model for MB adsorption and Freundlich and Langmuir model for CV adsorption. The Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) isotherm was also a good fit to the adsorption of CV and MB dye, suggesting the physisorption due to its free energy of adsorption < 8 kJ mol-1. The kinetics were effectively explained by a pseudo-second order model for both the dyes suggesting that chemical mechanisms influenced the adsorption of CV and MB dyes onto NCC-CH. The intraparticle diffusion model best suited the MB adsorption with three stages rather than the CV with a single step process. Also, the removal efficiency of adsorbent was retained at above 60% even after seven adsorption-desorption cycles indicating the effectiveness of the NCC-CH hydrogel beads for the removal of textile dyes.
