Statistical optimization of physical conditions for phenol degradation using effective microorganism-I

14-20Phenol degradation has been carried out using commercial formulation of effective microorganism (EM-1) containing a mixture of Lactobacillus plantarum (1.0×104 CFU/mL), Candida utilis (1.0×105 CFU/mL), <span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US" lang="EN-US">Actinomycetes (3.5×103 CFU/mL), Streptomyces albus (3.0×103 CFU/mL) and Aspergillus oryzae (1.1×105 CFU/mL). Response surface methodology (RSM) has been adopted to evaluate the effect of different parameters such as initial phenol concentration, temperature, pH and time on phenol degradation. The maximum of 90.5% phenol degradation is observed at optimized value of process variables such as initial phenol concentration 1008 mg/L, temperature 35.5°C, pH 7, incubation time 97.07 h. The R2=0.997, adjusted R2=0.9960 and predicted R2=0.9890 values show that the experimental values are in good agreement with predicted values. The RSM is found to be useful in optimizing and determining the interaction among process variables in phenol degradation.