Journal of Environmental Biology

Microbial decolorization and bioremediation of melanoidin  containing molasses spent wash

 

K. D. Singh¹, S. Sharma*¹, A. Dwivedi¹, P. Pandey¹, R.L. Thakur¹ and V. Kumar²

*sharmashivesh@email.com

¹Department of Microbiology, Division of Life Sciences, S.B.S (P.G) Institute of Biomedical Sciences and Research,

Balawala-248 161, Dehradun, India

²Department of Soil and Water, Public authority of Agriculture affairs and Fish Resources, PO Box-21444, Safat, Kuwait

(Received: August 29, 2005 ; Revised received: May 18, 2006 ; Re-revised received: July 27, 2006 ; Accepted: August 12, 2006)

Abstract: Molasses spent wash from cane-molasses based distilleries contains a brown coloured recalcitrant polymer melanoidin, which if disposed untreated poses a great threat to environment. Microbial decolorization and chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction was found to be dependent on specific carbon and nitrogen source. Under optimal condition of pH, carbon and nitrogen concentration for each treatment, it was found that Bacillus sp isolated from soil was capable of removing COD (85.35%) and colour (81.10%) from distillery waste to the maximum extent after 9 days at pH 7 in the medium containing 0.5% peptone, 2% glucose and 10% (v/v), followed by Phanerochaete chrysosporium and lowest reduction was obtained by using native microbial consortium.

Key words:     Molasses spent wash, Bacillus sp, Decolorization. Melanoidin, Chemical oxygen demand

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