LAUSR

Abstract The growing concerns regarding the stock of fossil fuel feedstock and environment throughout the globe have led to the quest for alternatives. Lignocellulosic biomass is the only alternative and of great interest for production of biofuel and other important chemicals. Lignin, the second most abundant terrestrial polymer after cellulose is one of the attractive sources for value added aromatics, remains underutilized. There are few evidences available on bacteria that utilize lignin as its food source compared to fungal strains. Taking this in account a natural bacterial consortium was developed on bamboo for value addition of lignin. On direct application of this bacterial consortium on bamboo, it was observed that lignin is degraded by the consortium without any appreciable damage to cellulose, producing vanillin as the major product accompanied by few other minor compounds. Vanillin was identified from its corresponding Proton-nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) values after purification on thin layer chromatography (TLC) and its production was found to be 0.9 ± 0.03 mg/mL from its high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) data.