Efficient control of newly emerging bacterial pathogens in wastewater effluents of livestock farms and abattoirs using terminator disinfectant-based copper oxide nanoparticles.

The development of highly operational, reusable, multifunctional antibacterial agents has become an urgent need of the hour in terms of environmental safety and sustenance. This study was aimed at determining newly emerging bacterial pathogens in the wastewater effluent of broiler chicken and dairy cattle farms, beside their slaughterhouses. Also, the study assesses the biocidal effect of chitosan (CS), terminator disinfectant (TD), copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO-NPs), and terminator-based copper oxide nanoparticles (TD/CuO-NPs) against isolated emerging bacterial pathogens from wastewater effluents. Eighty wastewater samples were collected from the local sewage systems of these farms and slaughterhouses for the isolation and identification of bacterial pathogens. The biocidal activity of compounds was tested against fifty strains of isolated bacterial pathogens using an agar well diffusion and broth micro-dilution assay. CuO-NPs and TD/CuO-NPs composites were characterized using the Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT-IR), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and zeta potential distribution. The wastewater effluents of broiler chicken and dairy cattle farms reported the highest rates of bacterial pathogens (95.0% and 90.0%, respectively), followed by animal abattoirs (80.0%). The effectiveness of TD/CuO-NPs composites against all emerging bacteria was found to be highly efficient (100%) compared to the efficiency of CuO-NPs, TD, and CS (90, 70, and 60%, respectively), at the highest concentration (2.0 µg/ml, 1.0 mg/l, and 1.5 µg/ml, respectively). In conclusion, the TD/CuO-NPs composite proved its biocidal effect (100%) against all isolated bacterial pathogens at 1.0 µg/ml. The synthetic nanocomposite could be implemented in any disinfection program and/or as an effective control strategy for the bacterial pathogens in wastewater effluents in various investigated areas.