Paper Title
P-Chloro Meta Xylenol (PCMX) Tolerant Bacteria And Their Biodegradation

Abstract
Pharmaceuticals are bioactive compounds generally resistant to biodegradation and thus create health hazard to humans and animals. One such important and universally used antiseptic is Dettol, the main ingredient of which is pchlorometaxylenol (PCMX). We have isolated and characterized a number of PCMX resistant bacteria. They showed excellent PCMX uptake within 24 h. The use of different microbial culture in biodegradation of PCMX has shown attractive results. Microbes degraded PCMX via metabolic pathways and finally reduced them into non-toxic end products. The following four bacteria were used for this study: BT102, (accession No. JQ80423), BTUA (accession No. GU265556), BT201 (accession No. JQ595990) and BT302, (accession No. JQ782891). The preliminary results showed that out of all these, two bacteria i.e. BT102 and BT201 could withstand a very high concentration of PCMX (10 mM) concentration. The biomass of these two bacteria was collected from the broth and encapsulated in beads made of biocompatible polymer (Calcium Alginate). These bacteria loaded beads were used to remediate PCMX from ppm level to ppb from synthetic as well as real environmental samples in a batch operation. Satisfactory results were obtained in the remediation within 24 hr. Index terms- Pharmaceuticals, Dettol, Chloroxylenol, Bioremediation