Abstract

Biosurfactant Producing Microbe Isolation and Effect of Different pH on its Growth

Author(s): Arpita Roy

Biosurfactants are surface active molecules which contain both hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups. Due to its amphiphilic nature it has the properties like foaming, emulsification, dispersing and detergency. Due to the various advantages of biosurfactants over chemical surfactants such as environment friendly, lower toxicity, biocompatibility, higher biodegradability, higher stability, extreme etc. they are widely utilized. They possess various applications in industries like health care, cosmetics, bioremediation, oil industries, etc. These biosurfactants are produced by wide range of microbes as an extracellular compound. The present study was done to isolate the potential biosurfactant producing bacteria and effect of pH on production of biosurfactant. All the isolates were screened for biosurfactant production and the presence of surfactant activity was determined by the oil displacement technique, emulsification index and CTAB assay. After identifying the potential isolate optimization of pH was done.