African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 5 (17), pp. 1524-1527, 4 September 2006   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2006 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Utilization of various industrial wastes for the production of poly-b-hydroxy butyrate (PHB) by Alcaligenes eutrophus

A. Arun ¹*, Rm.Murrugappan¹, A. D. David Ravindran², V. Veeramanikandan¹ and Shanmuga Balaji³

¹Department of Microbiology, Thiagarajar College, Madurai-625 009, Tamilnadu, India.

²Department of Biology, Gandhigram University, Gandhigram, Tamilnadu, India.

³School of Biotechnology Madurai Kamarajar University, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India

*Corresponding authors E-mail: arunalacha@yahoo.co.in.

Accepted 22 June, 2006

Considering the industrial interest of poly-b-hydroxy butyrate (PHB) and its high production cost, work has been undertaken for the production of PHB by Alcaligenes eutrophus. Different industrial wastes (malt, soya, sesame, molasses, bagasse and pharmaceutical waste) were used as a cheap substrate to minimize the production of cost and nitrogen limited minimal agar synthetic medium was also used for comparison. Accumulation of PHB granules in the organism was analyzed by sudan black method. The PHB production in various industrial waste based medium and nitrogen limited minimal agar synthetic medium was studied by crotonic acid method. The pure form of PHB was collected and qualitatively analyzed by infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance methods. Highest PHB production was found in nitrogen limited minimal agar synthetic medium. Among the various industrial wastes based media, highest yield was obtained with sesame oil waste as carbon source.

Key words: Poly- b- hydroxy butyrate, PHB, Alcaligenes eutrophus.