Abstract—Proteolytic and lipolytic bacteria may be found in hide-soak liquors. These microorganisms may affect leather quality adversely and cause important economic losses. Therefore, we examined lethal effect of 1 A DC treatment implemented with 1.5 A AC on mixed culture of Gram-positive and Gram-negative hide bacteria in Nutrient Broth containing 3% NaCl in this study. Proteolytic and lipolytic Gram-positive Bacillus lentus, Staphylococcus intermedius, Aerococcus viridans and Enterococcus avium, Gram-negative Enterobacter cloacae and Pseudomonas putida, which were isolated from hide soak liquor in our previous study, were used as test microorganisms in this study. Log10 reduction factors of 1.40, 1.62, 2.00 and 2.10 belonging to the mixed culture were detected after first, second, third and fourth cycles of electric current treatments, respectively. This study results exhibited that the electric treatment was efficient in reducing the cell counts of microorganisms found in hide-soak liquors.

Index Terms—Direct electric current, alternating electric current, hide bacteria.

Meral Birbir and Pinar Caglayan are with Division Plant Diseases and Microbiology, Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Marmara University, Goztepe, Istanbul, Turkey (email: ybirbir@hotmail.com.tr).
Yasar Birbir is with Department of Electric and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Marmara University, Goztepe, Istanbul, Turkey.
Esin Yilmaz is with Institute of Pure and Applied Sciences, Marmara University, Goztepe, Istanbul, Turkey.

Cite: Meral Birbir, Yasar Birbir, Esin Yilmaz, Pinar Caglayan, "Electrochemical Inactivation of Proteolytic and Lipolytic Hide Bacteria," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 121-129, 2016.