Biodegradation and Decolorization of Distillery Spent Wash with Product Release by a Novel Strain Cladosporium cladosporioides: Optimization and Biokinetics

R. Ravikumar, N. S. Vasanthia and K. Saravanan

Abstract
Owing to rapid developments in reducing investment costs for the treatment of industrial effluent and gain through release of product, this investigation focuses on simultaneous treatment and product release. Tests were conducted to reveal the potential of Cladosporium cladosporioides for biodegradation and decolorization of distillery spent wash. A 24 full factorial central composite experimental design of Response Surface Methodology was conducted obtaining a maximum decolorization of 62.5 % and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) reduction of 73.6 % at optimized conditions (fructose concentration of 7 g L–1, peptone 2 g L–1, 6 pH and 10 % (w/v) inoculum concentration). Results of the kinetic study revealed that the decolorization process follows first order kinetics with half life saturation period of 5.02 days. The products released during the degradation were separated, analyzed using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), and identified through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library.

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Keywords
Cladosporium, decolorization, response surface methodology, central composite design, distillery spent wash