Development of a novel solid-state fermentation strategy for the production of poly-3-hydroxybutyrate using polyurethane foams by Bacillus sphaericus NII 0838

• Published in: Annals of microbiology Vol. 63; no. 4; pp. 1265 - 1274
• Main Authors: Ramadas, Nisha V, Sindhu, Raveendran, Binod, Parameswaran, Pandey, Ashok
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.12.2013; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Subjects: ammonium sulfate; Applied Microbiology; Bacillus sphaericus; biomass; Biomedical and Life Sciences; bioprocessing; engineering; foams; inoculum; Life Sciences; Medical Microbiology; Microbial Ecology; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Microbiology; Mycology; Original Article; plastics; poly-3-hydroxybutyrate; polyurethanes; production; response surface methodology; solid state fermentation; waste disposal; Solid-state fermentation; Box–Behnken design; Poly-3-hydroxybutyrate; Jackfruit seed hydrolyzate; Polyurethane foam
• ISSN: 1590-4261; 1869-2044
• DOI: 10.1007/s13213-012-0584-7

The extensive use of synthetic plastics has caused serious waste disposal problems in our environment. Poly-3-hydroxybutyrates (PHB) are eco-friendly bacterial polyesters which are produced under unbalanced nutrient conditions. Few reports are available on PHB production by solid state fermentation (SSF). We have developed a novel SSF bioprocess in which polyurethane foam (PUF) is used as a physical inert support for the production of PHB by Bacillus sphaericus NII 0838. Media engineering for optimal PHB production was carried out using response surface methodology (RSM) adopting a Box–Behnken design. The factors optimized by RSM were inoculum size, pH and (NH₄)₂SO₄concentration. Under optimized conditions—6.5 % inoculum size, 1.7 % (w/v) (NH₄)₂SO₄and pH 9.0—PHB production and biomass were 0.169 ± 0.03 and 0.4 ± 0.002 g/g PUF, respectively. This is the first report on PHB production by SSF using PUF as an inert support. Our results demonstrate that SSF can be used as an alternative strategy for the production of PHB.