• Lasitha.K
• Dr.Sr.M Arul Sheeba Rani

Depletion of fossil fuels has created a necessity to find out alternative sources of non-conventional energy. Plants containing secondary metabolites such as, oil and hydrocarbons that are attractive alternate energy and chemical sources. Realizing this important, the present investigation has been attempted, neem oil was extracted from neem press cake by using hexane and aqueous ethanol form the soxhlet’s apparatus. Oil was separated and used for further studies. To reduce the viscosity of extracted neem oil used by microbes to find the possibility of obtaining biosurfactant during the process. The oil degrading fungal species such as Aspergillus oryzae and Penicillium chrysogenum could grow well in stone medium among the four different medium. Soluble fraction of water and hexane extracts of neem oil used as carbon source. In this experiments two controls were maintained simultaneously to verify whether the growth of the microbes is enhanced by the extract. Control I was only medium with uninoculated microbes and no energy sources, control II was medium with extract without microbial inoculants. The control III flask contained inoculated medium with neem oil extract and nitrogen sources maintained at different temperature and pH level. The fungal species Aspergillus oryzae produce better biomass and biosurfactant in the presence of nitrogen source (NH4)2HPO4. Higher biomass and biosurfactant could be correlated with viscosity of the oil. The result was Aspergillus oryzae degraded the oil and reduced the viscosity from 200 to 50 which suggested the possibility of uses of this microbe for enhancing the fuel efficiency of neem oil for engines

Biomass, Biosurfactant, Oil degrading, Neem press cake, Neem oil, Hydrocarbon-degrading.

"CHANGES IN VISCOSITY OF NEEM OIL AND BIOSURFACTANT PRODUCTION BY HYDROCARBON DEGRADING MICROBES", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.837-844, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1906R13.pdf

"CHANGES IN VISCOSITY OF NEEM OIL AND BIOSURFACTANT PRODUCTION BY HYDROCARBON DEGRADING MICROBES", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp837-844, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1906R13.pdf