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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol. , 08 August 2024
Sec. Microbiotechnology
Volume 15 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1384639
This article is part of the Research Topic Microbial Regulatory Mechanisms in Remediation of Industrial Wastewater and Contaminated Soils View all 8 articles
Introduction: Toxic heavy metal pollution has been considered a major ecosystem pollution source. Unceasing or rare performance of Pb2+ to the surrounding environment causes damage to the kidney, nervous, and liver systems. Microbial remediation has acquired prominence in recent decades due to its high efficiency, environment-friendliness, and cost-effectiveness.
Methods: The lead biosorption by Bacillus subtilis was optimized by two successive paradigms, namely, a definitive screening design (DSD) and an artificial neural network (ANN), to maximize the sorption process.
Results: Five physicochemical variables showed a significant influence (p < 0.05) on the Pb2+ biosorption with optimal levels of pH 6.1, temperature 30°C, glucose 1.5%, yeast extract 1.7%, and MgSO4.7H2O 0.2, resulting in a 96.12% removal rate. The Pb2+ biosorption mechanism using B. subtilis biomass was investigated by performing several analyses before and after Pb2+ biosorption. The maximum Pb2+ biosorption capacity of B. subtilis was 61.8 mg/g at a 0.3 g biosorbent dose, pH 6.0, temperature 30°C, and contact time 60 min. Langmuir’s isotherm and pseudo-second-order model with R2 of 0.991 and 0.999 were suitable for the biosorption data, predicting a monolayer adsorption and chemisorption mechanism, respectively.
Discussion: The outcome of the present research seems to be a first attempt to apply intelligence paradigms in the optimization of low-cost Pb2+ biosorption using B. subtilis biomass, justifying their promising application for enhancing the removal efficiency of heavy metal ions using biosorbents from contaminated aqueous systems.
Keywords: Bacillus subtilis , optimization, biosorption, lead, low-cost remediation, definitive screening design, artificial neural network
Citation: El-Sharkawy RM, Khairy M, Abbas MHH, Zaki MEA and El-Hadary AE (2024) Innovative optimization for enhancing Pb2+ biosorption from aqueous solutions using Bacillus subtilis. Front. Microbiol. 15:1384639. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1384639
Received: 10 February 2024; Accepted: 29 July 2024;
Published: 08 August 2024.
Edited by:
Jianjun Chen, University of Florida, United StatesReviewed by:
Bulgariu Laura, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași, RomaniaCopyright © 2024 El-Sharkawy, Khairy, Abbas, Zaki and El-Hadary. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Reyad M. El-Sharkawy, ci5tLmVsc2hhcmthd3lAZnNjLmJ1LmVkdS5lZw==; Mohamed Khairy, bWtvbXJhbkBpbWFtdS5lZHUuc2E=
†ORCID: Reyad M. El-Sharkawy, orcid.org/0000-0003-1319-9066
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