Isolation and Characterization of Lead Resistant Indole Acetic Acid Producing Rhizobacteria from Fly Ash Contaminated Site Near Thermal Power Plant

Abstract

Coal Fly Ash is a major by-product of a coal-fired thermal power plant along with bottom ash, exhaust gas and effluent. Safe storage and disposal of Fly Ash is a global challenge of modern era due to the presence of different heavy metals i.e. Pb, Al, Ni, Cd, Zn, As, Co etc. Most of Fly Ash is used for landfill purposes and only a small portion is used in other industries like pawer blocks, cement and agriculture.Fly Ash has been reported the as soil amendment agent for agricultural land. However, Fly Ash has also been reported to have a negative effect on soil microbial community due to the presence of heavy metals. Hence, Study was carried out to isolate and characterize heavy metal resistant IAA producing Rhizobacteria from the rhizosphere of Arachis hypogaea L plant which was collected from the farms adjacent to the Ukai thermal power plant. Highest IAA producing isolated strain of Bacillus cereus was used for optimization. The three factors explored in the current study were pH (Factor A), Temperature (Factor B) and Tryptophan concentration (Factor C). The effect of these three factors variations on the response of IAA produced (Y) was investigated using a 23 Full Factorial Design (FFD). A 23 Full Factorial Design model was built and Regression was done using R software.