Vol. 7, Issue 4 (2018)

Author(s):
Nisha Verma, SS Sindhu and Sneh Goyal

Abstract:
Poly-hydroxyalkanoates are biodegradabele polymers produced by many microorganisms to overcome environmental stress conditions. For production of biodegradable plastic polymers at low cost, one hundred and fifteen Gram positive bacterial isolates were obtained from soils amended with sewage sludge. Different bacterial isolates were screened for production of poly-b-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) using Nile blue A and Sudan black B dyes. Only 10.65% of the total Bacillus isolates showed PHB production. Four Bacillus strains showed high fluorescence with Nile blue A and accumulated PHB granules in the cell. Bacillus strain Sld110 produced 38.6% PHB under shaking and 52.2% under stationary conditions using 1% sewage sludge as carbon substrate. Thus, the exploitation of these Bacillus strains for production of biodegradable plastics by utilizing sewage sludge waste will solve the problems associated with waste disposal and also reduce environmental pollution.