The paper industry consumes and pollutes a large amount of water. With the help of bioaugmentation, the amount of unwanted substances present in the white water could be reduced and thus water consumption would be reduced. The main emphasis of this master degree thesis is to choose the best combination of bacteria that degrades the substances present in the white water of the wood-free paper mills and therefore has great potential for use in biological treatment. Individual bacteria isolated from the white water of wood-free paper mills were first identified and tested for their ability to degrade the substances that are present in the white water of wood-free paper mills. Their ability to degrade azo dyes, fluorescent dye, starch, cellulose, latex emulsion, and alkyl keten dimers was tested. Then meaningful combinations of most active strains were assembled and tested in synthetic white water. The presence of inoculated bacteria in combination after exposure in synthetic white water was analyzed to determine the negative and positive interactions between individual strains. A combination of strains Xanthomonas sp., Cellulosimicrobium sp., Aeromonas sp., Klebsiella sp. and Agromyces sp. was choosen.
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