Hydrocarbon removal by use of immobilized microorganisms onto electrospun nanofibers

In nanotechnology science, materials which are produced using electrospinning are very interesting. An important feature of nanocomposite materials is that they provide a small volume of high surface area. Nanofiber technology has been used mainly in the field of environmental biotechnology, for dye and heavy metal removal research. This study focuses on the removal of hydrocarbons. Comamonas testosteroni isolate was used for biodegradation of 4-carboxy benzaldehyde (4-CBA) and terephthalic acid (TFA) chemicals. The effect of removal efficiency of microorganisms immobilized on selected polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), cellulose acetate (CE) electrospun nanofibers, total cell quantitation studies, gene expression levels and toxicity cases were investigated. The results of the thesis study showed that the best recovery efficiency for each concentration 50 mg/L, 100 mg/L and 200 mg/L, respectively; 100%; 99.51%; 99.06% for TFA chemical and 100%; 100%; 100% for 4-CBA chemical. In total cell quantitation studies, molecular techniques and cultural methods were compared and the advantages of the molecular technique used were taken into account. The best results are obtained in gene expression studies; For TFA chemical, the concentration of 200 mg/L, 16S housekeeping gene was calculated as 8.11 for the tphA2 gene, 15.78 for the tphA3 gene, 13.64 for the pmdA gene, and 2.38 for the pmdB gene at the end of biodegradation. For the 4-CBA chemical, the concentration of 100 mg/L, 16S housekeeping gene was calculated as 23.26 for the tphA2 gene, 68.60 for the tphA3 gene, 31.34 for the pmdA gene, 2.37 for the pmdB gene and 1.12 for the [tsaD]2 gene at the end of biodegradation Finally, in the toxicity analysis results, for all concentrations did not a toxic effect on the test organism Vibrio fischeri.