Abstract

Biotechnological Utilization of Agriculture Residues for Sustainable Development

Author(s): Nitu Singh and Sanjay Timande

Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant organic raw material in the world. Lignocelluloses constitute a major portion of agricultural and forest wastes. They are the most promising feed stock for the production of enzymes. The bioconversion of agro wastes into xylanase has received considerable interest during the recent years, because the production process is eco-friendly and use cheap biomass resources as substrates, which help to reduce enzyme prices. To investigate the production of xylanase from Bacillus species isolated from the soil sample collected from the vicinity of paper industry, submerged fermentation was performed, using wheat straw, wheat bran, rice straw, rice bran and bagasse as substrates. Wheat bran supported xylanase production with maximum activity (0.196 units/mL) in the medium with 1% wheat bran on 3rd day of fermentation. Optimum temperature and pH for maximum xylanase production reported were 37o C and 7, respectively. Further, the inoculum size, 0.4% v/v, gave the maximum yield. L.B. plot for reaction of xylanase revealed that Vmax of the reaction was 3.1 µmoles/min. and M.M. constant (Km) was 0.0028 µg/mL. In addition, it was observed that activity of xylanase produced was 0.32 units/mL at pH 7 and temperature 50o C.