UAE researchers identify new bacteria strain to clean water

Dubai: Two professors in the UAE have identified a novel strain of bacteria from petroleum sludge that can break down pollutants in water in a matter of hours.

Researchers at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) named the new strain UAEU-H3K6M1, which has very interesting bio-remediating abilities to degrade pollutants in water within hours, depending on how much bacteria you put in.

The research work was done by Professors Salman Ashraf and Ranjit Vijayan through a two-year grant funded by the university. The research was published in the July 26 issue of the American Society for Microbiology’s prestigious journal ‘Microbiology Resource Announcements’.

The research comes at a time when the UAE is also focusing on a priority area: the future of clean water.

Dr Ashraf, Professor of Biochemistry at the university’s College of Science, said the current problem is that more and more pollutants like industrial compounds, pesticides, medicines, and personal care products are finding their way into our water supply.

A number of scientists have attempted different ways to remove and destroy these so-called emerging pollutants, before degrading them in water.

Dr Ashraf said there are three kinds of approaches: physically, including filters at home and black charcoal filters, chemically using bleach in swimming pools, and biologically where enzymes and bacteria are used in the water.

The third approach where enzymes can break pollutants down and bacteria can eat them up for food and break them down is the UAE researchers’ area of research. “We wanted to see if we could isolate the natural bacteria from the petroleum sludge and see if they can degrade different kinds of organic pollutants in water,” he said.

The novel aspect of the project is the petroleum, which has chemicals that resemble pollutants in the water.

“We did a whole genome sequencing and we were able to identify a novel strain of bacteria from petroleum sludge,” said Dr Ranjit Vijayan, Associate Professor of Biology.

A significant difference in results can usually be witnessed within four hours. Twelve hours ensures the complete destruction of organic pollutant test samples.

Dr Vijayan said more work has to be done to carefully assess the different classes of organic pollutants and how to increase the efficiency of the process.

“We have to look at degrading many others. It’s the first time we have a UAEU-named bacterium, which was exciting for us and this is done a lot in the United States and Europe where research labs would honour their university by naming the bacterium after it.”

Chemistry Master’s student, Manal Al Hafeti, from the UAE, also worked on the project and became the first author on the paper. Findings will allow people to use the bacteria as is in wastewater treatment plants.

“It’s a natural bacterium and it’s not genetically modified,” said Dr Ashraf, whose speciality is biochemistry and biotechnology. “It’s naturally found in the environment. If we use the bacteria by spreading it in polluted water, we are not introducing a new kind of organism as it exists in the same environment as the UAE.”

The UAEU scientists plan on studying the genes to find out which are involved in breaking down organic compounds and using those genes to make enzymes to use in water treatment applications.