DAV PUBLIC SCHOOL,

CHANDRASEKHARPUR

BIOLOGY INVESTIGATORY
PROJECT
TOPIC-
MICROBES IN HUMAN WELFARE

BY SUSHREE SUCHARITA
SCHOOL NO- 12159
CLASS- 12A
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I take this opportunity to express my
heartfelt gratitude to my teacher
friends and families who helped and
guided me on the subject of my
project. I have made this project
from my heart and shown utmost
sincerity to complete it. I am
grateful to all those people who
spared their valuable time to fill the
questionnaire based on the project
topic. I also thank my parents who
provided all the resources required
for this project.Thanks to all.
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION

This is to certify that SUSHREE

MR SUBHADIPTA DAS
ABSTRACT
• A microorganism is a microscopic
living organism, which may be single
celled or multicellular. Microorganism
was discovered in 1674 by Antonie
van Leeuwenhoek, using a microscope of
his own design. They are very diverse
and include all the Bacteria and archaea
and almost all the protozoa. They
also include some fungi, algae, and
certain animals, such as rotifers.
Microbes are present everywhere – in
soil, water, air, inside our bodies
and that of other animals and
plants and even in Hot springs and
Oceans. Some are even observed in
vacuum under certain test conditions.
Microorganisms are crucial to nutrient
recycling in ecosystems as they act as
decomposers. As some
microorganisms can fix nitrogen,
they are a vital part of the nitrogen
cycle. Microorganisms are also
exploited in biotechnology, both in
traditional food and beverage
preparation, and in modern
technologies based on genetic
engineering. Microbes are vital to
humans and the environment as they
participate in the carbon and nitrogen
cycle as well as fulfilling other vital role in
virtually all ecosystem such as recycling
other organism’s dead remains and
waste products through decomposition.
•CHEESE MAKING PROCESS
Milk is often pasteurized to destroy
pathogenic microorganisms and to eliminate
spoilage and effects induced by bacteria. The
milk is then inoculated with fermenting
microorganisms and rennet, which promote
curdling.The fermenting microorganisms carry
out the anaerobic conversion of lactose to
lactic.. In the presence of lactic acid, rennet,
or both, the milk protein casein clumps
together and precipitates out of solution; this
is the process known as curdling, or
coagulation. Coagulated casein assumes a
solid or gel like structure (the curd), which
traps most of the fat, bacteria, calcium,
phosphate, and other particulates.
 WINE MAKING PROCESS

The process of
winemaking involves
numerous stages
starting with the
grapes being
harvested, taken into
a winery and then
prepared for
fermentation. At this
stage, red wine is
created during the
fermentation of the
pulp (or "must") and
skins of the red or
black grapes,
, which gives the wine its colour. To start
primary fermentation, a process that
typically takes between one to two weeks,
yeast is added which converts the sugars in
the grape juice into alcohol and carbon
dioxide, which then evaporates into the
atmosphere The produced liquid, which is
known as "free wine," is then pumped into
tanks and the skins are pressed in order to
extract the remaining wine and juice. This
wine, known as the "press wine,. Secondary
fermentation is the next step, which is the
bacterial fermentation involving the
conversion of malic acid to lactic acid. This
decreases the amount of acid in the wine
and softens the taste.
USES IN WATER TREATMENT
• Microbes play a Major role in treating million of
Gallons of wastewater everyday across the
globe. Water pollution is due to presence of
particulate matter or presence of inorganic
or organic Compounds or because of too many
or non native microorganisms. Sewage
Treatment consists of three stages called
Primary, Secondary Tertiary Treatment

PRIMARY TREATMENT
In the primary sedimentation stage, sewage
flows through large tanks, commonly called “pre-
settling basins”, “primary sedimentation tanks” or
“primary clarifiers". The tanks are used to settle
sludge while grease and oils rise to the
surface and are skimmed off. Primary settling
tanks are usually equipped with mechanically
driven scrapers that continually drive the
collected sludge towards a hopper in the base of
the tank where it is pumped to sludge treatment
facilities.

SECONDARY TREATMENT
designed to substantially degrade the
biological content of the sewage which are derived
from human waste, food waste, soaps and
detergent. The majority of municipal plants treat the
settled sewage liquor using aerobic biological
processes. To be effective, the biota requires both
oxygen and food to live. The bacteria and
protozoa consume biodegradable soluble
organic contaminants (e.g. sugars, fats, organic
short-chain carbon molecules, etc.) and bind much
of the less soluble fractions into floc. Secondary
treatment systems are classified as fixed-film or
suspended-growth systems.
TERTIARY TREATMENT
The purpose of tertiary treatment is to
provide a final treatment stage to
further improve the effluent quality
before it is discharged to the receiving
environment (sea, river, lake, wet lands,
ground, etc.). More than one tertiary
treatment process may be used at any
treatment plant. If disinfection is
practised, it is always the final process.
It is also called “effluent polishing.”
USES IN PRODUCTION OF
CHEMICALS
Use in production of chemicals, enzymes
,antibiotics etc. Many microbes are used for
commercial and industrial production of chemicals,
enzymes and other bioactive molecules. Examples
of organic acid produced include Acetic acid :
Produced by the bacterium Acetobacter aceti and
other acetic acid bacteria (AAB) Acetic acid
bacteria (AAB) are bacteria that derive their energy
from the oxidation of ethanol to acetic acid during
fermentation. They are Gram-negative, aerobic,
rod-shaped bacteria. They are not to be confused
with the genus Acetobacterium, which are
anaerobic homoacetogenic facultative autotrophs
and can reduce carbon dioxide to produce
acetic acid, for example, Acetobacterium woodii .
Butyric acid (butanoic acid): Produced by the
bacterium
Clostridium butyricum.
Clostridium butyricum is a strictly anaerobic
endospore-forming Gram-positive butyric acid
producing bacillus subsisting by means of
fermentation using an intracellularly
accumulated amylopectin-like α-polyglucan
(granulose) as a substrate. It is uncommonly
reported as a human pathogen and widely used
as a probiotic in Asia (particularly Japan). C.
butyricum is a soil inhabitant in various parts
of the world, has been cultured from the stool of
healthy children and adults, and is common
in soured milk and cheeses. Lactic acid :
Lactobacillus and others commonly called as
lactic acid bacteria (LAB) The lactic acid bacteria
(LAB) comprise a clade of Gram-positive, low-
GC, acid-tolerant, generally non-sporulating,
non-respiring rod or cocci that are associated by
their common metabolic and physiological
characteristics.
IMPORTANCE IN ECOLOGY
• Proteins are the basic stuff of organic tissues, and
nitrogen is an essential element of all proteins. The
availability of nitrogen in forms that plants can use is
a basic determinant of the fertility of soils; the role of
microbes in facilitating the nitrogen cycle
is therefore of great importance. When a plant
or animal dies, microbes break up the
complex proteins, polypeptides, and nucleic acids
in their bodies and produce ammonium, ions,
nitrates, and nitrites that plants then use to build
their body tissues.
• One of the most important roles of microbes is
breaking up the complex substances in decaying
plants and animals so that they can be used again
by living plants. This involves microbes as catalysts
in a number of natural cycles, among the most
prominent being the nitrogen, and sulfur cycles.
• Both bacteria and blue-green algae can fix nitrogen
directly from the atmosphere, but this is less vital to
plant development than the symbiotic relationship
between the bacteria genus Rhizobium and
leguminous plants and certain trees and shrubs. In
return for secretions from their host that encourage
their growth and multiplication, Rhizobia fix nitrogen
in nodules of the host plant’s roots,
providing nitrogen in a form usable by the plant.
• Microbes also participate in the sulfur cycle, mostly
by breaking up the naturally abundant sulfur
compounds in the soil so that this vital element
is available to plants. Sulfur cycle, is the circulation
of sulfur in various forms through nature. Sulfur
occurs in all living matter as a component of certain
amino acids. It is abundant in the soil in
proteins and, through a series of microbial
transformations, ends up as sulfates usable by
plants.
• Sulfur-containing proteins are degraded into their
constituent amino acids by the action of a variety of
soil organisms. The sulfur of the amino acids is
converted to hydrogen sulfide (H2S) by another
series of soil microbes. In the presence of oxygen,
H2S is converted to sulfur and then to sulfate
by sulfur bacteria. Eventually the sulfate
becomes H2S.
CONCLUSIONS
Microbes are a very important component of
life on earth. Not all microbes are pathogenic.
Many microbes are very useful to human
beings. We use microbes and microbially
derived products almost every day. Microbes
are essential in processes like Wine making and
Cheese making. Bacteria called lactic acid
bacteria (LAB) grow in milk to convert it into
curd. The dough, which is used to make bread,
is fermented by yeast called Saccharomyces
cerevisiae. Certain dishes such as idli and dosa,
are made from dough fermented by microbes.
Bacteria and fungi are used to impart particular
texture, taste and flavour to cheese.
Many microbes are used for commercial
and industrial production of chemicals, enzymes
and other bioactive molecules .Antibiotics
like penicillins produced by useful microbes are
used to kill disease-causing harmful microbes. For
more than a hundred years, microbes are being
used to treat sewage (waste water) by the
process of activated sludge formation and
this helps in recycling of water in nature.
Microorganisms are used in fermentation to
produce ethanol, and in biogas reactors to
produce methane Methanogens produce methane
(biogas) while degrading plant waste. Biogas
produced by microbes is used as a source of
energy in rural areas. It is clear from the diverse
uses human beings have put microbes to that
they play an important role in the welfare of
human society.
• Reference
• Biological Science: Third Edition By, N.
P. O. Green (Author), G. W. Stout
(Author), D. J. Taylor (Author), R. Soper
(Editor)
• Exploring Biology By, Ella Thea Smith
• NCERT Text Book
• Tell Me Why
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
THANK YOU