Development of biological oxygen demand biosensor for monitoring the fermentation industry effluent.

A biosensor was developed for the determination of BOD value of fermentation industry effluent. The developed biosensor was fabricated by immobilizing the microbial consortium on cellulose acetate (CA) membrane in close proximity to a DO probe electrode. The microbial consortium was harvested from the fermentation industry effluent. The BOD biosensor was calibrated by using a solution containing the equivalent amount of glucose/glutamic acid (GGA) as a standard sample solution. The response time was optimized by immobilizing different concentrations of cell biomass on CA membrane. Once the response time was optimized, it was used for determination of BOD of fermentation industry effluent. For analysis of fermentation industry effluent, the response time was observed 7 minutes with detection limit 1 mg/L. Good linear range with GGA standard solution was observed, R (2) 0.99 with relative standard deviation (RSD) <%. The observed BOD value by biosensor showed a good comparison with the conventional method for the determination of BOD.