Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Exhibit Hall
The production of biodegradable poly(3-hydroxyalkanoates) (PHA) from the raw potato starch by Bacillus cereus 64-INS strain isolated from sludge has been studied in a lab-scale fermenter. The bacterium was screened for the degradation of raw potato starch by starch hydrolysis method and for PHA production by Nile blue A and Sudan black B staining. Shake flask cultures of the bacterium were grown with glucose (2 %) or raw potato starch (2 %) that resulted in PHA of 64.35 % and 34.68 % of dry cell weight (DCW) respectively. PHA production was also carried out in a 5-l fermenter under control conditions that produced 2.78 g/l of PHA and PHA content of 60.53 % of its DCW after 21 hours of fermentation using potato starch as sole carbon source. GC-MS analyses confirmed that the extracted PHA contained PHB as its major constituent (>99.99 %) irrespective of the carbon source used.