In vitro degradation of chicken feather paper by Bacillus subtilis

Sreenivasulu¹*, R. B. Choudary¹, V. Chandra Prakash¹ And N. M. R. Bhargava²

¹K.L. College of Engineering, Vaddeswaram - 522 502, Guntur District (India) ²College of Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam - 530 003 (India)

ABSTRACT: Chicken feather is generated in large quantities as a waste product of poultry processing industry. Morphologically chicken feather fiber (CFF) is akin to cotton fiber. Researchers developed technologies to produce CFF paper. CFF undergoes various chemical treatments during production of paper which might affect its bio degradability. The paper presents the results of in vitro bio degradability of CFF paper by Bacillus subtilis. Changes in pH of the medium, release of disulphides, soluble proteins, amino acids and rate of keratinase activity of the culture filtrate were estimated during the degradation process. SDS-PAGE results show that in vitro degradation reached saturation in four weeks. The enzyme keratinase produced by the Bacillus Subtilis was found to be responsible for the effective biodegradation of CFF paper. The results confirm that CFF paper degrades rapidly and is eco friendly.

KEYWORDS: Feather; keratin; handmade paper; biodegradability; pollution; keratinase; Bacillus subtilis

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