Bacillus spizizenii DN and microbial consortia biostimulation followed by gamma irradiation for efficient textile wastewater treatment

Textile wastewater still poses a huge environmental problem due to its high water consumption and high effluent release that is full of toxic chemicals. In the present study, different approaches were studied to layout an operating procedure for textile wastewater treatment in order to obtain treated wastewater that is safe for non-potable uses. Our approach depended on (1) co-substrate to biostimulate indigenous microbial textile wastewater community by adding Tryptone Soy Broth (TSB) and TSB supplemented with 1% glucose, (2) co-culture (bioaugmentation) with Bacillus spizizenii DN cells (previously isolated, identified and characterized as efficient decolorizing bacteria), and (3) co-metabolites using Bacillus spizizenii DN metabolites. The obtained results show that using Bacillus spizizenii DN cells resulted in 97.78% decolorization while adding Bacillus spizizenii DN metabolites resulted in 82.92% decolorization, both after 48 h incubation under microaerophilic conditions. The phyla identified for all treatments were Bacteroidota, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria. The dynamic changes in the bacteria showed that both Clostridium and Acinetobacter disappeared for co-substrate, co-culture, and co-metabolite cultures. While Alkalibacterium and Stenotrophomonas appeared after adding Bacillus spizizenii DN cells, Flavobacterium increased for co-substrate and co-metabolic cultures while iron reducing bacteria appeared only for co-metabolic cultures. The use of 25 kGy gamma irradiation as a sterilization dose post bioremediation ensured safe use of treated wastewater. This was confirmed by cytotoxicity assay; the obtained IC(50) tested on BJ fibroblasts obtained from skin showed that gamma irradiated treated wastewater are about 80.1% less toxic than non-irradiated treated wastewater. We conclude that (1) we can use combined bioaugmentation and biostimulation as initial steps for in situ bioremediation in collection tanks and that (2) the proposed protocol for bioremediation of industrial wastewater should be tailored based on the required application and level of safety needed for re-use. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-022-24599-w.