Chitosan Extraction from F.solani sps, Study of its Antibacterial and Dye Degradation Ability.

Recent advances in fermentation technology have led to new innovative techniques to obtain useful by-products from various soil microbes. F.solani CBNR KRRR, isolated from the marine soils of Pichavaram, Tamil Nadu was used for the economic production of Chitosan using Hesseltine and Anderson medium. The polysaccharides were extracted by alkali-acid treatment, and characterized by infrared spectroscopy. The highest growth rate was with Henderson and Anderson medium with a mycelial dry weight of 14 g/L. The best yield of the chitosan so obtained is (33.57 mg/g or 3.3%). The antimicrobial activity of Chitosan was tested against E.coli and S.aureus using Growth kinetics. It was found that the Extracted Chitosan have antimicrobial activity comparable to the Commercial Chitosan as well as the standard antibiotic used. Subsequently the extracted Chitosan was also tested for its photocatalytic ability to degrade dye-methylene blue and was found to exhibit 94.5% inhibition in 72 hours.