Abstract
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•Supplementation of molasses and soy meal resulted in 8 and 7 fold increase in EPS.•Optimized medium containing molasses and soy meal yielded 15.49 fold increase in EPS.•Mercury adsorption 295.53 μg Hg2+/ 20 mg DCW within 20 min by Bacillus cereus VK1.
Increasing interests in industrialization invites acute or chronic toxicity into the environment resulting in serious ecological risks. This can be efficiently handled by bioremediation techniques. Hence in the present study, an exopolysaccharide (EPS) producing bacterium was isolated and identified as Bacillus cereus VK1 by 16S rRNA characterization. EPS was purified, estimated and further characterized by FTIR, GC–MS and TGA. Media optimization for enhanced production of EPS was done by statistical modeling which yielded a 15.49 fold increase upon supplementation of molasses (3%) and soy meal (3%). Furthermore, the cells were employed for bioremediation of Hg2+, estimated by stripping voltammetry technique. Results revealed that 20 mg (DCW) of Bacillus cereus VK1, grown in LB could adsorb up to 80.22 μg Hg2+ in 20 min, whereas bacteria grown in the RSM optimized M9 media adsorbed up to 295.53 μg Hg2+, thus B.cereus VK1 may render a strategy for the bioremediation of Hg2+ polluted eco-systems.