The Presence of Mercury Resistant Bacteria in Sediment of Gold Processing Plant at Waekerta Village of Buru District, Maluku Province and Their Activity in Reducing Mercury

Mercury was one of the heavy metal polute in environment and had the toxic characteristic to the living creatures. Golden mining in Waeapo subdistrict used mercury to extract the gold and exile the waste to the environment freely. Several precedented research showed that waste sediment of gold processing contains mercury resistance bacteria. Mercury resistance bacteria can be used as bioremediation agent because those bacteria can reduce mercury. Mercury resistance bacteria has mer operon which contained in plasmid. The goal of this research is to isolate mercury resistance bacteria which is able to grow on medium nutrient agar (NA) containing 500 ppm of HgCl2 and to analyze the capability in HgCl2 reduction in nutrient broth (NB) medium. Bacteria isolation was done by platting method on Nutrient Agar containing 10 ppm of HgCl2. Bacteria identification was done by kit Microgen TM GnA + B-ID System and to know bacteria capability in reducing mercury was done by CV-AAS (Cold Vapour Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer). Result showed, that the bacteria found in this research were Bacillus sp and Aeromonas hydrophila. Both of these bacteria were able to reduce HgCl2 in the amount of 98,7% for Bacillus sp and 98,33% for Aeromonas hydrophila. In the future those bacteria can be use as bioremediation agent. Key words: Mercury Resistant Bacteria, Bacillus sp, Aeromonas hydrophila, Gold Processing.