Isolation and Screening of Cellulose Degrading Bacteria in Kitchen Waste and Detecting Their Degrading Potential

The present paper investigates cellulose degrading bacteria present in kitchen waste for highest cellulase activity and growth of bacteria at optimum temperature and pH. Sample was collected from domestic kitchen waste and bacterial strains were isolated using nutrient agar media. Enrichment technique was used for isolating CDB (cellulose degrading bacteria) strains. The objective of research was to utilize effective bacteria for degrading complex polymer cellulose into simpler sugars like glucose under optimum working conditions. Out of 21 isolated bacterial strains, only four were having effective cellulose degrading bacteria. These four isolates were screened for qualitative estimation through Congo red dilution assay and quantitatively tested by DNS method (Miller, 1959). The optimum pH and temperature for most potent isolate was recorded as 7 and 35oC respectively. It was concluded that these findings were in accordance with previous results. These optimum working conditions were recommended for biomass utilization.