Biodegradable Polymeric Substances Produced by a Marine Bacterium from a Surplus Stream of the Biodiesel Industry.

Sourish Bhattacharya,Anupama Shrivastava,Priyanka Singh,Sonam Dubey,Sandhya Mishra

doi:10.3390/bioengineering3040034

Abstract

Crude glycerol is generated as a by-product during transesterification process and during hydrolysis of fat in the soap-manufacturing process, and poses a problem for waste management. In the present approach, an efficient process was designed for simultaneous production of 0.2 g/L extracellular ε-polylysine and 64.6% (w/w) intracellular polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) in the same fermentation broth (1 L shake flask) utilizing Jatropha biodiesel waste residues as carbon rich source by marine bacterial strain (Bacillus licheniformis PL26), isolated from west coast of India. The synthesized ε-polylysine and polyhydroxyalkanoate PHA by Bacillus licheniformis PL26 was characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning colorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and 1H Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The PHA produced by Bacillus licheniformis was found to be poly-3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate (P3HB-co-3HV). The developed process needs to be statistically optimized further for gaining still better yield of both the products in an efficient manner.

Highlights

Most of the global economy is driven by petroleum fuels as the main source of energy
FT-IR spectra of obtained PHA were recorded on a Perkin-Elmer Spectrum GX (FT-IR System, Waltham, MA, USA) instrument. 1H Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of PHA was determined on Bruker Avance-II 500 (Ultra shield) spectrometer, Bangalore, India, at 500 MHz, in CDCl3
B. licheniformis PL26 is able to produce both ε-polylysine and PHA in the same fermentation broth, which is not reported till date

Summary

Introduction

Most of the global economy is driven by petroleum fuels as the main source of energy. Biodiesel is an appealing alternative [5,6], which is clean burning, non-toxic and biodegradable [7]. It is a fatty acid methyl ester compound produced by a transesterification process of animal or plant oils with methanol in the presence of a catalyst [8,9,10]. With every 100 lbs of biodiesel produced by transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fats, 10 lbs of crude glycerol is generated [13,14]. The tremendous growth of the biodiesel industry has created a glycerol surplus that resulted in a dramatic 10-fold decrease in crude glycerol prices over the last few years. This decrease in prices resulted a problem for the glycerol producing and refining industries and the economic viability of the biodiesel industry has been greatly affected [15,16]

Methods

Results

Conclusion