Raden Darmawan

Isolation and Evaluation of PAH Degrading Bacteria

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) degrading bacteria can be isolated from polluted coastal environments. They were close to Burkholderia fungorum and Mycobacterium gilvum, and had nidA, nidA3, pdoA2, and pcaH genes. In the pyrene and fluoranthene degradation experiment using a minimum medium, B. fungorum isolate no. 1 and M. gilvum isolate no. 13 were able to degrade 98.6% + 1.9 of pyrene after 20 days, and 99.9% ± 0.1 after a 16-day incubation period, respectively. Moreover, fluoranthene could be consumed by B. fungorum isolate no. 1 and M. gilvum isolate no. 13 at the level of 99.6% ± 0.7 after 24 days, and 100% after a 28-day incubation period, respectively.

The use of mud as an alternative source for bioelectricity using microbial fuel cells

Alternative energy sources to substitute fossil-based energy is expected, as the fossil energy reserves decreasing every day. Mud is considered to be economical as the material sources for generating the electricity where it could be found easily and abundantly in Indonesia. The existence of a lot of mud that contains organic material has great potential as a source of electrical energy using microbial fuel cells (MFCs). It provides a promising technology by degrading organic compounds to yield the sustainable energy. The different sampling sites were determined to find out the electricity production, i.e. mud from soil water, brackish water and sea water using an anode immersed of 10 cm2. The results suggest that the electricity generation of the three areas are 0.331, 0.327 and 0.398 V (in terms of voltage); 0.221, 0.050 and 0.325 mA (in terms of electric current), respectively. It is investigated that the mud obtained the sea water exhibits the highest power potential compared to that obtained from the brackish and soil water.