Abstract:
The objective of this thesis is to develop a BOD biosensor for determination of BOD of natural riverwater with low BOD content (lower than 10 mg l-1BOD). In order to achieve this goal,microorganisms that can grow well in low nutrient media must be selected. Nine strains of salttorelantbacteria isolated from saline soil in Ampher Borabue, Mahasarakam province, Thailandwere screened for high growth rate in a low nutrient medium (1/10 Tryptic Soy Broth, TSB). Fourstrains (TSA7, TSA34, TSA41 and TSA59) showed higher growth rates than others in 1/10 TSBand were selected for assimilation capacity tested in seven types of organic compounds: humic acid,tannic acid, gum arabic, lauryl sulfate, lignosulfonic acid, glucose and glutamic acid. The results ofsubstrate assimilation capacity of cell suspension of these four strains and strain P1 (Pseudomonassp.) isolated from wastewater from a softdrink factory showed that bacteria strain TSA7 couldassimilate all the organic compounds tested at a concentration of 20 mg l-1 and provided highresponse current obtained from DO probe. From biochemical test, TSA7 was identified as Bacilluscereus.Thus, a BOD biosensor using B. cereus (TSA7) at 1?107 cells cm-2 was constructed. Calibratingsolution which is a mixture of glucose and glutamic acid (GGA) was used as a standard for BODbiosensor calibration. The BOD biosensor was characterized, resulting in a linear range up to 10mg l-1 BOD with a sensitivity of 3.3535 nA/ mg l-1BOD. It was also found that the lowest limit ofdetection was 0.5 mg l-1BOD with the response time of approximately 7-16 minutes at steadystatemeasurement. Furthermore, the BOD biosensor showed appropriate operational stability in 52intermittent batch measurements and the optimum response was obtained at 30-35oc and pH 6.8-7.2.As a result, the BOD biosensor was applied to determine BOD value of water samples fromdifferent locations of a river and canal and compared with values from the conventional 5day BOD(BOD5). It was observed that BOD biosensor showed higher BOD content for the sample contained10.0-13.5 mg l-1 chloride than BOD5. While on the contrary, sample containing low concentration ofchloride (0.032 mg l-1) demonstrated approximately the same value as that obtained from BOD5.