Optimizing microbial strain selection for pyrethroid biodegradation in contaminated environments through a TOPSIS-based decision-making system

Abstract Improved and contemporary agriculture relies heavily on pesticides, yet some can be quite persistent and have a stable chemical composition, posing a significant threat to the ecology. Removing harmful effects is upon their degradability. Biodegradation must be emphasized to lower pesticide degradation costs, especially in the soil. Here, a decision-making system was used to determine the best microbial strain for the biodegradation of the pyrethroid-contaminated soil. In this system, the criteria chosen as: pH (C 1), Temp (C 2), RPM (C 3), Conc. (C 4), Degradation (%) (C 5) and Time required for degradation(hrs) (C 6); and five alternatives were Bacillus (A 1), Acinetobacter (A 2), Escherichia (A 3), Pseudomonas (A 4), and Fusarium (A 5). The best alternative was selected by applying the TOPSIS (technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution) method, which evaluates based on their closeness to the ideal solution and how well they meet specific requirements. Among all the specified criteria, Acinetobacter (A 2 ) was the best and optimal based on the relative closeness value (( $${R}_{i}^{*}$$ R i ∗ ) = 0.740 (A 2 ) > 0.544 (A 5 ) > 0.480 (A 1 ) > 0.403 (A 4 ) > 0.296 (A 3 )). However, the ranking of the other alternatives is also obtained in the order Fusarium (A 5), Bacillus (A 1), Pseudomonas (A 4), Escherichia (A 3). Hence this study suggests Acinetobacter is the best microbial strain for biodegradation of pyrethroids; while least preference should be given to Escherichia. Acinetobacter, versatile metabolic nature with various xenobiotic compounds' degradation ability, is gram-negative, aerobic, coccobacilli, nonmotile, and nonspore forming bacteria. Due to less study about Acinetobacter it is not in that much frame as the other microorganisms. Hence, considering the Acinetobacter strain for the biodegradation study will give more optimal results than the other microbial strains. Novelty of this study, the TOPSIS method is applied first time in selecting the best microbial strain for the biodegradation of pyrethroid-contaminated soil, considering this selection process as multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem.