Statistical Optimization Approaches for High Cell Biomass Production of Lactobacillus casei

216-221Probiotic bacteria are known to treat and prevent diseases and hence promote physical and mental wellness due to their significant brain-gut relationship. The main challenge involved in probiotic commercialization is the bio processing limitation to produce high cell mass, especially with the cultivation of lactic acid bacteria which produces lactic acid as a by product. Synthesis of lactic acid by lactic acid bacteria inhibits bacterial growth, and in turn disrupts high cell mass production. Current work presents the findings for Lactobacillus casei medium optimization by response surface methodology in shake flask level. A simple medium using 4 components: lactose, soybean meal, yeast extract and magnesium sulphate has been identified to produce high cell mass than generic mediaused for probiotic cultivation, such as the MRS medium. Secondly, response surface methodology using Box-Behken Design was employed as an optimization strategy. After optimization process, the production of Lactobacillus casei biomass increased by about 164.6% recording 6.51g.L-1 compared to cell biomass obtained using initial un-optimized medium (2.46g.L-1)

The effect of mycorrhizal fungi and organic fertilizers on quantitative and qualitative traits of two important satureja species

The quantitative yield and essential oil percentage and composition of two important savory species in response to various fertilizers were explored in a field experiment as a factorial study based on a randomized complete block design with three replications in north Lorestan, Iran, in 2017–2019. The first factor was assigned to three mycorrhizal fungi (Funneliformis mosseae, Rhizophagus irregularis, and Glomus fasciculatum), phosphate biofertilizer (Baravar-2), fish manure (800 kg/ha), cattle manure (20 t/ha), vermicompost (5 t/ha), and a control (no fertilization); the second factor was assigned to two savory species, including Satureja khuzestanica and S. rechingeri. The results of the combined analysis of variance for the second and third years showed that the simple effects of fertilizers and species were significant on all recorded traits, except for some constituents of the essential oil. Among the mycorrhizal fungi, R. irregularis and S. khuzestanica outperformed S. rechingeri in all traits, except for essential oil content and yield. The interaction between year and species was significant for all traits. The essential oil content of S. rechingeri in the third year (5.1%) was 18% higher than that of S. rechingeri in the second year (4.3%) and 41% higher than that of S. khuzestanica in the third year (3.6%). According to the results, the foliar application of vermin compost at a rate of 5 t/ha can contribute to the sustainable production of both savory species, improving their growth and essential oil yield

Tree bark scrape fungus: a potential source of laccase for application in bioremediation of non-textile dyes

Although laccase has been recognized as a wonder molecule and green enzyme, the use of low yielding fungal strains, poor production, purification, and low enzyme kinetics have hampered its large-scale application. Thus,this study aims to select high yielding fungal strains and optimize the production, purification, and kinetics of laccase of Aspergillus sp. HB-RZ4. The results obtained indicated that Aspergillus sp. HB-RZ4 produced a significantly large amount of laccase under meso-acidophilic shaking conditions in a medium containing glucose and yeast extract. A 25 μM CuSO4 was observed to enhance the enzyme yield. The enzyme was best purified on a Sephadex G-100 column. The purified enzyme resembled laccase of A. flavus. The kinetics of the purified enzyme revealed high substrate specificity and good velocity of reaction,using ABTS as a substrate. The enzyme was observed to be stable over various pH values and temperatures. The peptide structure of the purified enzyme was found to resemble laccase of A. kawachii IFO 4308. The fungus was observed to decolorize various dyes independent of the requirement of a laccase mediator system. Aspergillus sp. HB-RZ4 was observed to be a potent natural producer of laccase, and it decolorized the dyes even in the absence of a laccase mediator system. Thus, it can be used for bioremediation of effluent that contains non-textile dyes. © 2020 Sayyed et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Separation, reserve estimation and radioactivity responsibility of the economic heavy minerals of East El- Arish black sand, North Sinai, Egypt

Multi-heavy mineral separation techniques like density, magnetic, and electromagnetic techniques are followed by picking, grain counting, and mineralogical examinations conducted with an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). These techniques have been applied to several drill hole (well) composite samples representing beach sand and dunes of East El-Arish area, North Sinai, Egypt. The results explain the remarkable enrichment in total heavy minerals (THM) of beach sand (4.4%) compared to sand dunes (2.6%): this is due to the natural concentration of the currents of the Mediterranean Sea. After characterizing the heavy minerals in terms of the abundance of each mineral species, the mean values of content relative to total economic heavy minerals (TEHM) were determined as 70.03% ilmenite, 3.81% leucoxene, 3.03% magnetite, 8.7% garnet, 10.6% zircon, 3.13% rutile, 0.37% monazite, and 0.31% titanite in the sand dune samples. The total economic heavy minerals in the beach samples were 64.08% ilmenite, 1.6% leucoxene, 2.84% magnetite, 18.16% garnet, 10.4% zircon, 2.18% rutile, 0.61% monazite, and 0.13% titanite. Monazite, thorite, zircon, and apatite are the main radioactive minerals in the study area. The combination of two specific characteristics of the studied monazite (relatively high Th-U content and high frequency) makes monazite the main contributor to radioactivity of the study area. © 2023, The Author(s)

Statistically Designed Bioprocess for Enhanced Production of Alkaline Protease in Bacillus cereus HP_RZ17

491-498Alkaline protease is one of the bulk enzymes having wide commercial demand for various applications. It is commercially produced by a submerged fermentation process employing various bacteria, Bacillus sp. being the most widely used species. Statistical optimization of the process for the production of alkaline proteases from rhizospheric bacteria and its application in the biocontrol of plant pathogens has not been explored fully and needs to be studied for the development of efficient bioprocess. We report the enhanced production of alkaline protease in the minimal salt medium (MSM) optimized using statistical approaches such as Plackett Burman Design (PBD) and Response Surface Methodology (RSM). In the first step; PBD, among the total eight variables, three variables namely, yeast extract (pppBacillus cereus HP_RZ17. These three variables were further analyzed in the second step i.e. Central Composite Design (CCD) of RSM. The optimum yield of alkaline protease by B. cereus HP_RZ17 (130.72 UmL-1) was obtained under the optimal conditions such as yeast extract (0.899% w/v), fructose (0.873% w/v), and pH (11.25) of production media. The statistically optimized values of variables used for the scale-up of the process at 5 L capacity bioreactor enhanced the alkaline protease yield (132.48 UmL-1) by 1.09 fold vis-à-vis un-optimized protocol (121.96 UmL-1) in B. cereus HP_RZ17

Isolation and Identification Studies on Potential Xylanase Producing Strain Trichoderma sp. WICC F46 Isolated from Tropical Soil

Trichoderma is one of few fungal species of high potential application as bio factory for xylanase production. During last few years increased demand have been observed on the need to isolate high efficient strains from soil sample and to use different microbiological and bioprocess engineering approaches to increase the production yield. In this work, efficient xylanase producer strain was isolated from soil and fully identified using phylogeny analysis. In order to develop an efficient submerged medium for xylanase production, media screening was carried out followed by optimization using one factor at a time (OFAT) method. After optimization of medium composition, the maximal xylanase volumetric production reached 311.71 UmL-1. This medium was composed of corn cob, peptone, magnesium sulphate, calcium chloride, and ammonium sulphate

UV Induced Mutagenesis Elevates the Production of Laccase in Enterobacter cloacae

442-448The increasing commercial significance of microbial laccase in various fields compels the supply of enzymes in large quantities at an affordable price. Laccase has been produced by a wide variety of wild cultures of bacteria and fungi, the high yielding strains are always desired to meet the increasing demand of laccase. Although various approaches have been proposed for improving the yield of laccase, UV mutagenesis is known as the best method of improving the strains for better yield of microbial metabolites. However, the reports on the use of UV light in strain improvement for laccase production by the use of Enterobacter sp. are scarce and need to be explored fully. For this purpose present study was aimed to improve the laccase production in Enterobacter cloacae through UV mutagenesis. We report enhanced production of laccase in a high yielding strain of E. cloacae isolated from the soap industry waste. UV mutagenesis of a wild strain of E. cloacae resulted in 3.09 folds further improvement in the production. Optimum laccase synthesis was reported at 26 h, of incubation at 30ºC under neutral pH (7.0) conditions. This high yielding mutant strain will have great industrial significance for laccase production

Statistical Optimization Approaches for High Cell Biomass Production of Lactobacillus casei

Probiotic bacteria are known to treat and prevent diseases and hence promote physical and mental wellness due to their significant brain-gut relationship. The main challenge involved in probiotic commercialization is the bio processing limitation to produce high cell mass, especially with the cultivation of lactic acid bacteria which produces lactic acid as a by product. Synthesis of lactic acid by lactic acid bacteria inhibits bacterial growth, and in turn disrupts high cell mass production. Current work presents the findings for Lactobacillus casei medium optimization by response surface methodology in shake flask level. A simple medium using 4 components: lactose, soybean meal, yeast extract and magnesium sulphate has been identified to produce high cell mass than generic mediaused for probiotic cultivation, such as the MRS medium. Secondly, response surface methodology using Box-Behken Design was employed as an optimization strategy. After optimization process, the production of Lactobacillus casei biomass increased by about 164.6% recording 6.51g.L-1 compared to cell biomass obtained using initial un-optimized medium (2.46g.L-1)

Optimizing the gamma-ray shielding behaviors for polypropylene using lead oxide: A detailed examination

In the current study, the PbO compound was used in order to optimize the gamma-ray shielding properties of the polypropylene polymers. A series of polypropylene doped PbO were performed using various PbO concentrations varied between 0 and 50 wt%. The experimental measurement for the density of the fabricated sample showed that the samples' density varied between 0.902 ± 0.004 and 1.645 ± 0.007 g/cm3, raising the PbO doping concentration between 0 wt% and 50 wt%. Furthermore, the scanning electron microscope was utilized to illustrate the distribution and morphology of the fabricated polypropylene doped PbO concentrations. The gamma-ray shielding capacity of the fabricated polypropylene doped PbO was examined and evaluated experimentally using a sodium iodide scintillation detector and different point sources in the gamma-ray energy interval between 0.059 and 1.408 MeV. The experimental results were affirmed via the Geant4 code, which depended on the Monte Carlo simulation. The difference recorded between the experimental and Geant4 calculations for the fabricated samples shielding properties was lies in between ±4%. The recorded linear attenuation coefficient at gamma-ray energy of 0.244 MeV varied between 0.1148 and 0.5837 cm-1, raising the PbO doping concentration between 0 wt% and 50 wt%. Moreover, the half-value thickness decreased with increasing the PbO doping ratio. © 2022 The Author(s)

Selective Recovery of Cadmium, Cobalt, and Nickel from Spent Ni–Cd Batteries Using Adogen® 464 and Mesoporous Silica Derivatives

Spent Ni–Cd batteries are now considered an important source for many valuable metals. The recovery of cadmium, cobalt, and nickel from spent Ni–Cd Batteries has been performed in this study. The optimum leaching process was achieved using 20% H2SO4, solid/liquid (S/L) 1/5 at 80 °C for 6 h. The leaching efficiency of Fe, Cd, and Co was nearly 100%, whereas the leaching efficiency of Ni was 95%. The recovery of the concerned elements was attained using successive different separation techniques. Cd(II) ions were extracted by a solvent, namely, Adogen® 464, and precipitated as CdS with 0.5% Na2S solution at pH of 1.25 and room temperature. The extraction process corresponded to pseudo-2nd-order. The prepared PTU-MS silica was applied for adsorption of Co(II) ions from aqueous solution, while the desorption process was performed using 0.3 M H2SO4. Cobalt was precipitated at pH 9.0 as Co(OH)2 using NH4OH. The kinetic and thermodynamic parameters were also investigated. Nickel was directly precipitated at pH 8.25 using a 10% NaOH solution at ambient temperature. FTIR, SEM, and EDX confirm the structure of the products. © 2022 by the authors.King Khalid University, KKU: KKU/RCAMS/22This work was supported by King Khalid University through a grant (KKU/RCAMS/22) under the Research Center for Advanced Materials Science (RCAMS) at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia