Japanese High Schoolers Discover De-Coloring Bacteria

The problem of decolorizing waste water produced by the dyeing process may have been solved by a pair of Japanese high school students who discovered a bacterium that does just that.

Tokiya Fujiwara, 17, and Jun Kaimen, 16, of Niihama Technical High School collected the bacterium last September from soil near Yashimaji temple in Takamatsu in Kagawa Prefecture. They were participating in a project for their environmental chemistry club to collect a variety of bacteria from parts of Shikoku, the southermost of Japan’s four main islands.

The bacterium was named KIT-56 after the surname initials of the two students and the club adviser, Shinichi Ihara, a 39-year-old teacher. The number refers to the fact that it was the 56th type of bacteria they had collected.

Placed into water reddened by a common azo dye, the bacteria broke down the color molecules, rendering the water colorless.

The bacterium’s effectiveness at decolorizing a variety of dyes and its strong reproductive capacity impressed those attending a meeting of a decolorizing research society comprising representatives from 10 organizations at which Ihara announced the discovery. A society member company in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, plans to set up equipment this fiscal year to make use of the bacterium.

Japan does not regulate the color of waste water, focusing instead on the toxidity of wastewater water. However, because colored sewage harms the image of industrial plants, many companies use chemicals to remove color from their waste water at a high cost.