Statistical optimization of physical conditions for phenol degradation using effective microorganism-I

Abstract

Phenol degradation has been carried out using commercial formulation of effective microorganism (EM-1) containing a mixture of <i>Lactobacillus plantarum </i>(1.0×10⁴CFU/mL), <i>Candida utilis</i> (1.0×10⁵ CFU/mL),<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang="EN-US">Actinomycetes</span></i> (3.5×10³CFU/mL), <i>Streptomyces albus </i>(3.0×10³CFU/mL) and <i>Aspergillus oryzae </i>(1.1×10⁵ CFU/mL). Response surface methodology (RSM) has been adopted to evaluate the effect of different parameters such as initial phenol concentration, temperature, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">p</i>H and time on phenol degradation. The maximum of 90.5% phenol degradation is observed at optimized value of process variables such as initial phenol concentration 1008 mg/L, temperature 35.5<span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-ascii-font-family:" times="" new="" roman";="" mso-hansi-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:="" symbol"="" lang="EN-GB">°C, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">p</i>H 7, incubation time 97.07 h. The R²=0.997, adjusted R²=0.9960 and predicted R²=0.9890 values show that the experimental values are in good agreement with predicted values. The RSM is found to be useful in optimizing and determining the interaction among process variables in phenol degradation.

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