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A significant share of wastewater produced during different processes is released to the surroundings without further treatment. Therefore, polluted water sources are triggering diseases like typhoid. To avoid this, various techniques have been developed for the removal of contaminants from the water. Iron-copper bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) supported on the reduced graphene oxide (rGOFeCu) were prepared which showed excellent antibacterial activity, efficient dechlorination of 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA), and removal of methylene blue (MB). The characterization of prepared nanocomposites was done by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Iron-based bimetallic NPs supported on the graphene were successfully synthesized as confirmed by TEM. Iron has a strong antibacterial effect on microorganisms, especially bacteria. We conducted the antibacterial activity of different compositions of nanocomposite toward Escherichia coli to understand the efficacy of prepared nanocomposites. In the same time and concentration conditions, rGOFeCu showed the best antibacterial activity, as compared to the graphene-based iron. Results show that the excellent antibacterial activity was exhibited by using rGO-Fe95Cu05 within two hours. More than 98% of cell inhibition was observed. The further increase in copper loading has no major effect on antibacterial activity. rGO-Fe95Cu05 exhibited excellent removal efficiency of TCA (99%) within 30 min as compared to other compositions of FeCu. It was found that rGO-Fe95Cu05 exhibited excellent removal efficiency against degradation of methylene blue (MB) through activation of sodium percarbonate (SPC). The results indicated that more than 99% of MB was removed within 15 min. The rGOFeCu represented a great potential material for antibacterial activity towards E. coli and remediation of other pollutants in the wastewater such as TCA and removal of MB.

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Bacillus atrophaeus HAB-5 is a plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium (PGPR) that exhibits several biotechnological traits, such as enhancing plant growth, colonizing the rhizosphere, and engaging in biocontrol activities. In this study, we conducted whole-genome sequencing of B. atrophaeus HAB-5 using the single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing platform by Pacific Biosciences (PacBio; United States), which has a circular chromosome with a total length of 4,083,597 bp and a G + C content of 44.21%. The comparative genomic analysis of B. atrophaeus HAB-5 with other strains, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens DSM7, B. atrophaeus SRCM101359, Bacillus velezensis FZB42, B. velezensis HAB-2, and Bacillus subtilis 168, revealed that these strains share 2,465 CDSs, while 599 CDSs are exclusive to the B. atrophaeus HAB-5 strain. Many gene clusters in the B. atrophaeus HAB-5 genome are associated with the production of antimicrobial lipopeptides and polypeptides. These gene clusters comprise distinct enzymes that encode three NRPs, two Transat-Pks, one terpene, one lanthipeptide, one T3PKS, one Ripp, and one thiopeptide. In addition to the likely IAA-producing genes (trpA, trpB, trpC, trpD, trpE, trpS, ywkB, miaA, and nadE), there are probable genes that produce volatile chemicals (acoA, acoB, acoR, acuB, and acuC). Moreover, HAB-5 contained genes linked to iron transportation (fbpA, fetB, feuC, feuB, feuA, and fecD), sulfur metabolism (cysC, sat, cysK, cysS, and sulP), phosphorus solubilization (ispH, pstA, pstC, pstS, pstB, gltP, and phoH), and nitrogen fixation (nif3-like, gltP, gltX, glnR, glnA, nadR, nirB, nirD, nasD, narl, narH, narJ, and nark). In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive genomic analysis of B. atrophaeus HAB-5, pinpointing the genes and genomic regions linked to the antimicrobial properties of the strain. These findings advance our knowledge of the genetic basis of the antimicrobial properties of B. atrophaeus and imply that HAB-5 may employ a variety of commercial biopesticides and biofertilizers as a substitute strategy to increase agricultural output and manage a variety of plant diseases.

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Most studies paid more attention to the pretreatment temperature and the resulted pretreatment efficiency, while ignored the heating media and their scalability to an industry scale. This study aimed to use a relative low pressure heating steam easily provided by steam boiler to meet the requirement of distributed dry dilute acid pretreatment. The results showed that the physical properties of the pretreated corn stover were maintained stable using the steam pressure varying from 1.5, 1.7, 1.9 to 2.1MPa. Enzymatic hydrolysis and high solids loading simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) results were also satisfying. CFD simulation indicated that the high injection velocity of the low pressure steam resulted in a high steam holdup and made the mixing time of steam and solid corn stover during pretreatment much shorter in comparison with the higher pressure steam. This study provides a design basis for the boiler requirement in distributed pretreatment concept.

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Amylase is an industrially important enzyme and applied in many industrial processes such as saccharification of starchy materials, food, pharmaceutical, detergent, and textile industries. This research work deals with the optimization of fermentation conditions for α-amylase production from thermophilic bacterial strain Bacillus sp. BCC 01-50 and characterization of crude amylase. The time profile of bacterial growth and amylase production was investigated in synthetic medium and maximum enzyme titer was observed after 60 h. In addition, effects of different carbon sources were tested as a substrate for amylase production and molasses was found to be the best. Various organic and inorganic compounds, potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, sodium nitrate, urea, yeast extract, tryptone, beef extract, and peptone, were used and beef extract was found to be the best among the nitrogen sources used. Temperature, pH, agitation speed, and size of inoculum were also optimized. Highest enzyme activity was obtained when the strain was cultured in molasses medium for 60 h in shaking incubator (150 rpm) at 50°C and pH 8. Crude amylase showed maximal activity at pH 9 and 65°C. Enzyme remained stable in alkaline pH range 9-10 and 60-70°C. Crude amylase showed great potential for its application in detergent industry and saccharification of starchy materials.

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We report the simple one pot synthesis of iron-silver (FeAg) bimetallic nanoparticles with different compositions on graphene support. The nanoparticles are well dispersed on the graphene sheet as revealed by the TEM, XRD, and Raman spectra. The antibacterial activity of graphene-FeAg nanocomposite (NC) towards Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus was investigated by colony counting method. Graphene-FeAg NC demonstrates excellent antibacterial activity as compared to FeAg bimetallic without graphene. To understand the antibacterial mechanism of the NC, oxidative stress caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the glutathione (GSH) oxidation were investigated in the system. It has been observed that ROS production and GSH oxidation are concentration dependent while the increase in silver content up to 50% generally enhances the ROS production while ROS decreases on further increase in silver content. Graphene loaded FeAg NC demonstrates higher GSH oxidation capacity than bare FeAg bimetallic nanocomposite. The mechanism study suggests that the antibacterial activity is probably due to membrane and oxidative stress produced by the nanocomposites. The possible antibacterial pathway mainly includes the non-ROS oxidative stress (GSH oxidation) while ROS play minor role.

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Ethanol fermentation was investigated at the high solids content of the dry dilute sulfuric acid pretreated corn stover feedstock using an evolutionary adapted Saccharomyces cerevisiae DQ1 strain. The evolutionary adaptation was conducted by successively transferring the S. cerevisiae DQ1 cells into the inhibitors containing corn stover hydrolysate every 12h and finally a stable yeast strain was obtained after 65 days' continuous adaptation. The ethanol fermentation performance using the adapted strain was significantly improved with the high ethanol titer of 71.40 g/L and the high yield of 80.34% in the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) at 30% solids content. No wastewater was generated from pretreatment to fermentation steps. The results were compared with the published cellulosic ethanol fermentation cases, and the obvious advantages of the present work were demonstrated not only at the high ethanol titer and yield, but also the significant reduction of wastewater generation and potential cost reduction.

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Utilization of lignocellulose materials to replace the pure glucose for preparation of the fermenting yeast seeds could reduce the cost of ethanol fermentation, because a large quantity of glucose is saved in the large-scale seed fermentor series. In this study, Saccharomyces cerevisiae DQ1 was cultured using the freshly pretreated corn stover material as the carbon source, and then the culture broth was used as the inoculation seeds after a series of seed transfer and inoculated into the ethanol production fermentor. The results show that the yeast cell growth and ethanol fermentation performance have essentially no difference when the yeast seeds were cultured by glucose, the corn stover hydrolysate liquid, and the pretreated corn stover solids as carbon sources, respectively. Approximately 22% of the yeast cell culture cost was saved, and the process flow sheet in industrial scale plants was simplified by using the pretreated corn stover for seed culture. The results provided a practical method for materials and operational cost reduction for cellulosic ethanol production.

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