Statistical optimisation for improvement of phenol degradation by Rhodococcus sp. NAM 81

Phenol is an important compound widely used in formulation of dyes, pesticides, in fabrication of plastics, as well as being generated in several industrial effluent other industries. In the present study, ability of phenol-degrading bacteria Rhodococcus sp. NAM 81 was characterised by optimising the important parameters that were able to support phenol degradation abilities using two-step statistical. Fractional factorial design (FFD) was applied to select significant variables (temperature, pH, phenol concentration, ammonium sulphate concentration, sodium chloride concentration, incubation time) that affects percentage of phenol degradation. pH (B), phenol concentration (C), sodium chloride (E) and incubation time (F) were observed to be significant (p0.05) for phenol degraded performance, as well as Rhodococcu growth. Under optimum conditions, the proposed method was successfully applied to improve 1.2 fold of phenol degradation and 1.3 for cell growth as compared to non-optimal cultivation.