Chandrasekaran, M; Jissa, Krishna G; Soorej, Basheer M; Beena, P S(2008)
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Abstract:
The textile industry is one amongst the rapidly growing industries world wide, which utilizes enormous
amounts of synthetic dyes. Consequently, the effluent from these textile industries poses serious threat to the
environment which is often very difficult to treat and dispose. This has become a very grave problem in environment
conservation and hence natural pigments have drawn the attention of industry as safe alternative. In this context,
in the present study an attempt was made to bioprospect marine bacteria towards isolation of a suitable and ideal
pigment that could be used as a natural dye. A marine Serratia sp. BTWJ8 was recognized to synthesize enormous
amounts of a prodigiosin-like pigment. The pigment was isolated and characterized for various properties. The
pigment was evaluated for application as a dye in the textile industry. Results of the studies indicated that this
pigment could be used as a natural dye for imparting red-yellow colour to various grades of textile materials. The
colour was observed to be stable after wash performance studies