• KSBB Journal
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.425-430
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• 2005

Thermophilic $H_2$ was produced for 1 year using a bench-scale continuous stirred tank reactor(CSTR). The CSTR was inoculated with anaerobically digested sludge after heat treatment and fed with a glucose-based medium. The reactor showed relatively short start-up period(30 days) and high maximal $H_2$ yield(2.4 mol $H_2/mol$ glucose). Keeping pH 5.0 or less suppressed methanogenic activity. Bacteria affiliated with Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum kept being dominant from approximately 40 days as determined by DGGE. Environmental perturbation(pH or temperature) caused the decrease of biomass concentration in the reactor and the instability of reactor performance, $H_2$ production rate and $H_2$ yield. The unstable performance was accompanied with high concentration of lactate in the effluent. Taken together, the poor recovery of CSTR after perturbations could be partly explained by low biomass concentration and/or metabolic shift of the major population in the CSTR.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2006

Feather, generated in large quantities as a byproduct of commercial poultry processing, is almost pure keratin, which is not easily degradable by common professes. Four strains, SMMJ-2, FL-3, NO-4 and RM-12 were isolated from soil for production of extracellular keratinolytic protease. They were identified as Bacillus sp. based on their morphological and physiological characteristics. They shown high protease activity on 5.0% skim milk agar medium and produced a substrate like mucoid on keratin agar medium. Bacillus sp. SMMJ-2 had a faster production time for producing keratinolytic protease than other strains. This strain did not completely degrade whole chicken feather for five days in basal medium but completely degraded whole chicken feather when supplied with nitrogen source for 40hours in keratinolytic producing medium ($0.7%\;K_{2}HPO_{4},\;0.2%\;KH_{2}PO_{4},\;0.1%$ fructose, 1.2% whole chicken feather, $0.01%\;Na_{2}CO_3$, pH 7.0). When supplied with chicken feather as nitrogen source, keratinolytic protease activity was 89 units/ml/min. When soybean meal was used as nitrogen source, the keratinolytic protease production reached a maximum of 106 units/ml/min after 48 hours under $30^{\circ}C$, 180 agitation. To isolate the keratinolytic protease, the culture filtrate was precipitated with $(NH_4)_{2}SO_4$ and acetone. The recovery rate of keratinolytic protease was about 96% after treatment with 50% acetone. The enzyme was stable in the range of $30{\sim}50^{\circ}C$ and pH $6.0{\sim}12.0$.