6iosurfactants are a unique class of biological compounds that have been
shown to have a variety of potential applications. However, little knowledge is known
about the distribution of biosurfactant - producing bacteria in the environment. The
goal of this study was to evaluate how surfactant-producing bacteria are found in
contaminated and uncontaminated sites. A twelve soil samples represent sandy or
clay soils and a contaminated or uncontaminated areas were collected from different
sites of Egypt and plated on nutrient aqar medium. The 494 colonies were obtained
and screened for biosurfactant production in mineral salts medium. A nine bacterial
isolates were selected as a positive action on biosurfactant production. The nine
isolates were purified and grouped which yielded 2 unique groups. In which consist of
2 strains and 4 species. In addition the surface tension results demonstrated thai
isolates produced different surfactant surface tension ranged between 25.1 to
50.2mN/m. The potential production of biosurfactanl is assessed based on the
development of a fermentative process with a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginos8
(PHM7) which was produced highly amount of biosurfactant with a high reduction in
surface tension. These production using different carbon sources (hexadecane,
paraffinic oil, glycerol and olive oil) and nitrogen sources (NaN03, (NH.)2S04 and
CH4N02) were tested. The more significant results were detected when glycerol was
used as a carbon source, in amount of 2.0 gIL and NaN03 as a nitrogen source.