Optimization studies on production of a salt-tolerant protease from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain BC1 and its application on tannery saline wastewater treatment

Treatment and safe disposal of tannery saline wastewater, a primary effluent stream that is generated by soaking salt-laden hides and skin is one of the major problems faced by the leather manufacturing industries. Conventional treatment methods like solar evaporation ponds and land composting are not eco-friendly as they deteriorate the ground water quality. Though, this waste stream is comprised of high concentration of dissolved proteins the presence of high salinity (1-6 percent NaCl by wt) makes it non-biodegradable. Enzymatic treatment is one of the positive alternatives for management of such kind of waste streams. A novel salt-tolerant alkaline protease obtained from P.aeruginosa (isolated from tannery saline wastewater) was used for enzymatic degradation studies. The effect of various physical factors including pH, temperature, incubation time, protein source and salinity on the activity of identified protease were investigated. Kinetic parameters (Km , Vmax) were calculated for the identified alkaline protease at varying substrate concentrations. Tannery saline wastewater treated with identified salt tolerant protease showed 75 percent protein removal at 6 h duration and 2 percent (v/v) protease addition was found to be the optimum dosage value.

Oxygen mass transfer studies on batch cultivation of P. aeruginosa in a biocalorimeter

In the present work volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLa) was investigated during batch cultivations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on a nutrient media. The effects of process variables (viz. impeller speed, oxygen flow and geometry of impeller) on the volumetric mass transfer coefficient of oxygen, kLa, in a biocalorimeter (Bio-RC1) was investigated and reported in this research work. The experimental data have been analyzed employing MATLAB to obtain the influences of the process parameters on kLa. An attempt was made to correlate volumetric mass transfer coefficient with metabolic heat production rate at optimized process conditions. The correlation reported in this work would be useful to control and scale up of bioprocesses.