Isolation of chromium resistant Bacillus sp. MRKV and reduction of hexavalent chromium potassium dichromate

The ability of Bacillus sp. MRKV isolated from tannery effluent which shows resistant towards hexavalent chromium potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7) was evaluated in this study. The bacterial strain was assayed for its reducing ability towards K2Cr2O7. The study revealed that the isolated strain has the ability to reduce the hexavalent chromium and the optimal conditions required for the chromium reduction was also evaluated. The observations infer that the bacterial strains can be exploited for bioremediation of hexavalent chromium containing wastes, as they seem to have a great potential to reduce the toxic hexavalent form to a less toxic trivalent form.