Microbial Enzymes: A Summary Focusing on Biotechnology Prospective for Combating Industrial Pollutants

Abstract

AbstractEnvironmental issues are growing at an alarming rate and addressing the same is the need of the hour. Hazardous industrial pollutants and discharges are adding to the misery. Therefore, new ideas and technologies are being created and adopted to deal with ever increasing conservational troubles. Due to the burning issue of environmental pollution rising daily, a paradigm shift towards more sustainable and greener has to be pondered on. Microbial enzymes are such versatile, useful and beneficial weapons those can be exploited to combat the above-mentioned issues. In this aspect various works have been done and different sources of isolation of microbes and their fermentation process for procuring enzymes from them have been investigated in detail in those work. Pualsa Jagdish et al.’s work (2013) from Viva College, Virar, and Maharashtra entails that Lipase enzyme was procured from curd and waste oil was used as substrate. Lipase was produced by Lactobacillus sp. Whose lipolytic activity was calculated to be 0.082 U/mg. This enzyme if isolated under favorable conditions can be used to be applied for various industrial purposes in order to suppress the pollution rate and reduced the dependency on market-based chemicals and reagents those are highly dangerous and harmful. Work of Ashutosh Nema et al. (2019) [1], talks about the use of lipase enzyme as well as proteases are used as catalysts in biodiesel production as an effective and economical approach. According to Wu et al., large scale productions of protease have been achieved from Aspergillus species for their application in food and beverage industries. Alkaline proteases were reported to be produced under solid state fermentation processes by A. flavus and A. oryzae. Ikram-Ul-Haq and Mukhtar (2015) [2] stated that Penicillium sp. Alkaline proteases were generated under both solid state and submerged fermentation. The Mucor sp. of fungi can produce protease for milk clotting and can substitute rennin in the cheese making industry. Fungal enzymes are commonly used in industries over bacterial enzymes due to various technical reasons such as the feasibility of gaining enzymes at a high concentration in the fermentation medium and easier downstream processing. This way it can be encapsulated that microbial enzymes are savior in the field of pollution remediation and replacer of harsh and hazardous chemicals for carrying out various industrial applications.