Rajalakshmi V
@dgvaishnavcollege.edu.in
Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology
Dwaraka doss goverdhan doss vaishnav college
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Environmental Science, Food Science
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
V. RAJALAKSHMI
ALOKI Ltd
The present research focuses on the feasibility of utilizing cotton waste for energy resurgence after physical and biological pretreatment followed by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation processes (SSF). The cotton waste was pretreated with microwave irradiation (MW) and subsequently subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis for the release of sugars utilizing the cellulase enzyme producer Trichoderma reesei (MTCC 164). Based on Box-Behnken design, pH, temperature and hydrolysis time period were selected as the most significant variables for the production of cellulase. The simultaneous fermentation and enzymatic saccharification (SSF) of pretreated substrate with immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MTCC 172) yielded 2.65%, 1.48% and 1.32% of ethanol with hard waste, carding waste and cotton seed waste, respectively. The findings suggest that these cotton wastes can be used effectively for the ethanol production.
T.K. Jacob, Sharon D′Silva, C.M. Senthil Kumar, S. Devasahayam, V. Rajalakshmi, E.S. Sujeesh, A. Ishwara Bhat, and Siljo Abraham
Informa UK Limited
The presence of Wolbachia in cardamom thrips (Sciothrips cardamomi), a major insect pest of cardamom (Eletteria cardamomum) was detected by amplification of the fast evolving outer membrane protein coding gene wsp of the bacterium. Studies on the identity of Wolbachia showed infection with only subgroup Con belonging to supergroup B, and both male and female thrips were infected with the same Wolbachia subgroup. The incidence of Wolbachia infection varied from 15.0 to 87.8% in thrips collected from seven cardamom growing districts of different States in India. The overall infection rate was 53.5% with 57.1% male and 50.6% female populations infected with the bacterium. DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed that all the Wolbachia isolates from thrips clustered together indicating that all thrips were infected by the same Wolbachia strain. This is the first ever report of Wolbachia infection in cardamom thrips and the possibility of using the bacterium as a tool in biological control of this important insect pest is discussed.