Effectiveness of the bran media and bacteria inoculum treatments in increasing pH and reducing sulfur-total of acid sulfate soils

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine the effectiveness ofsulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) in using bran as a source of food and energy, and to see the effectiveness of the bran media and bacteria inoculums treatments for pH and sulfur-total of acid sulfate reduction insoils. This study used two factors in group random designs with four treatments for bacteria inoculum of B1 (1%), B2 (5%), B3 (10%), B4 (15%) and two treatments for organic media (bran) of D1 (1:1) and D2 (1:19). Based on three replications, the combination resulted in a total of 24 treatments. Soil pH was measured using the Duddridge and Wainright method and determination of sulfate content in soil was conducted by the spectrophotometry method. The data obtained was analyzed for significance by Analysis of Variance and the Least Significant Difference Test. The pH of the initial acid sulfate soils ranged from 3 to 4 and the soil sulfur-total ranged from 1.4% to 10%. After mixing sulfate reducing bacteria with the bran mediaand incubated for four days, the pH of the acid sulfate soils increased from 3.67 to 4.20, while the soil sulfur-total contents had been reduced by 2.85% to 0.35%. This experiment has proven that an acid sulfate soil with low pH is a good growth medium for the sulfate reducing bacteria. The bestincubation period to achieve an effective bioremediation resultthrough sulfate percentage reduction by sulfate reducing bacteria was 10 days, while the optimum bran media dose was 1:19, and the bacteria inoculums dose was 10%. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.