Immobilization technique of natural dyes, as a novel method to preserve industrially important E. coli and Bacillus species

Immobilization is a method used for the preservation of enzymes as this method provides enhanced resistance to the changes in certain environmental conditions like pH/temperature. The advantage of immobilization (IMB) of live bacterial cells is especially high due to their role in environmental monitoring due to their low cost, easy handling and high sensitivity to the environment. Through our project we tried to show that this method of IMB is effective in the preservation of microorganisms. We used natural dyes during the course of our project which were extracted from grinding of fruits and vegetables such as pomegranate, beetroot and carrot. We used Sodium Alginate beads so that there were a good number of beads formed that helped for the proper entrapment of microorganisms E. coli and bacillus for future use. Natural dyes were chosen over synthetic dyes due to their environmental friendliness, cost effectiveness and less complexity. To confirm if the method had been effective, we prepared a growth curve to check the growth of the microorganism and found out that this method could be used to store the microbes for a month’s duration.