Heavy metals degradation by Serratia marcescens immobilized into novel modified loofah sponges

Abstract The intensive production of heavy metals by tannery industry is consequential to our environment. The present study involves novel modified loofah sponges immobilised indigenous Serratia marcescens, a new sustainable approach for bioremediation. The antibiotic resistance test showed, susceptibility of specific strains to 19 antibiotics. The morphological, biochemical and phylogenetic analysis were done and sangers DNA sequencing revealed the specific organism to be Serratia marcescens , which showed gram negative colonies with pink or bright red or purple colour colony with distinctive round, elevated structure. The Serratia marcescens R1 SANTH strain were submitted to NCBI [accession number: PQ069772]. The SEM images confirmed the immobilisation of Serratia marcescens R1 SANTH and heavy metals in novel modified loofah sponges and SEM-EDX analysis were done to confirm the atomic percentage and weight percentage of copper, chromium, nickel on the loofah sponges. The amount of degradation was 92.05%, 87.8%, and 80.92% for chromium, copper and nickel, respectively was confirmed with ICP-OES analysis. This study shows novel modification of loofah sponges can act as biocarrier as well as heavy metals sequestrant, which can improve the degradation process of conventional method, decreases the cost of treatment process and also supports sustainable development goal 6, by using green technology.