Removal of phosphate by Staphylococcus aureus under aerobic and alternating anaerobic-aerobic conditions

Eutrophication of water bodies due to phosphate enrichment is an ecological problem. Phosphate is removed from wastewaters by enhanced biological phosphate removal worldwide by phosphate accumulating organism. In order to understand the process of treatment, the existing microbial community and its metabolism of phosphate removal are studied widely. This study focuses on the isolation of polyphosphate-accumulating bacteria from different environments and studying their phosphate removal capacity with different carbon supplements under varying culture conditions. The total heterotrophic bacterial population from the diverse environments showed the existence of phosphate-accumulating bacteria. Among them, Staphylococcus aureus removed 81% of phosphate in a polyphosphate-accumulating medium with storage of 93 mM polyphosphate internally. Among the different carbon sources provided, glucose induced a net specific growth rate of 0.816/d. S. aureus removed 70% of phosphate with a phosphate uptake rate of 6.29 mg PO₄/g cells and a growth yield of 0.2 g cells/g glucose consumed when 1 g/L glucose was provided. Furthermore, when 2 g/L glucose was provided, 78% of phosphate was removed with a phosphate uptake rate of 13.24 mg PO₄/g cells and a growth yield of 0.4 g cells/g glucose consumed under aerobic condition. S. aureus showed enhanced phosphate removal under aerobic condition in the presence of glucose.