Bacterial Deterioration in the Limestone Minaret of Prince Muhammad and Suggested Treatment Methods, Akhmim, Egypt

Abstract

El-Amir Muhammad’s minaret in Akhmim, Sohag, Egypt, is constructed of limestone and has been exposed to many factors of damage as a result of the high levels of ground water. Limestone is strongly affected by ground water, especially when being impure. The current work discusses the results of ana-lytical techniques including chemical testing to determine the types of soluble salts through optical microscopy, electronic scanning electron microscope with an X-ray energy dispersion system (ESEM) to study and determine the causes of rapid degradation. Microbial weathering phenomena toward limestone were also studied. Different bacteria and fungi were isolated from outdoors and indoors of air and limestone of the building of which Bacillus cereus OK447647, B. subtilis OK447648, Serratia marcescens OK447650, Pseu-domonasoryzihabitans OK447649, Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, Penicillium chrysogenum and Cladosporium cladosporoids were the most representative. B. cereus OK447647 and B. subtilis OK447648 have shown ability for calcium carbonate dissolving. The minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of sodium azide were investigated against the growth of microbial isolates. Sodium azide at 100 ppm was found to be the best treatment for bacterial isolates al-though it had no significant effect against fungi.