Production of granules with the degrading strain Rhodococcus sp. FP1 using polymeric immobilizing agents

In an increasingly competitive and demanding world, industrial and population-wise, water has gained an increased value and is more than ever a scarce and valuable resource. As a consequence of civilization development, the variety and amount of industrial chemicals being released into the environment has raised. Indigenous microbial communities in biotreatment processes may not be effective in removing xenobiotic contaminants.This work aims to combine extracted extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) withspecialized degrading strain Rhodococcussp. FP1 for the production of granules capable to degrade 2-fluoropenol-a toxic compound present in several industrial effluents–for further bioreactor bioaugmentation. The strength of the synthetic granules was testedusing a shear stress test. Thisstudy presents a potential application of a recovered resource from wastewater treatment andwillpotentiallyassist the existing industrial processes of wastewater treatment with aerobic granular sludge (AGS).