New Delhi | September 7, 2017:

The high-altitude Pangong Lake in Ladakh is home to the bacterium Pseudomonas sp. ISTPL3, which can convert lipids into bio-diesel

Using microbes growing in two diverse climatic conditions, Indian scientists have found a way to convert carbon-rich waste materials into bio-fuel.

A team of researchers from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) not only discovered two distinctly different species of bacteria from Aravalli marble mines near Alwar and from the high-altitude Pangong Lake in Ladakh, but also found that they can combine forces to produce bio-diesel from carbon-containing waste materials. The bacterium identified and isolated from the marble rocks in Rajasthan, called Serratia sp. ISTD04, is capable of sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide into organic compounds such as lipids. Meanwhile, lipase, which the team isolated from cold-loving bacterium Pseudomonas sp. ISTPL3, can convert these lipids into bio-diesel.

“This lipase is nothing but an enzyme that works as a catalyst to produce bio-diesel,” said Indu Shekhar Thakur, who led the research. “We hope this can be a cost-effective way of converting a waste product to an eco-friendly fuel,” he said, adding that the team had already filed for patents.

The findings recently appeared in two publications: Journal of Energy and Environmental Sustainability and Bioresource Technology.

According to Thakur, the microbe isolated from the marble mines not only sequesters carbon dioxide implicated in climate change, but also converts it into valuable organic compounds. “What is significant is that 60 per cent of its body weight is nothing but lipids that can be converted into bio-diesel through a catalytic process,” he said.

This catalytic process — called transesterification — can be done using either chemical catalysts or enzymes such as the one the scientists isolated from the microbe found in the brackish water of Pangong Lake, which is shared between India and China.

The scientists said they were amazed to see the lipase has very high conversion efficiency. They have also demonstrated that the lipase could be recycled several times.

(Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/)