Agricultural and industrial waste represents the most abundant renewable
resource in the biosphere and is readily available in substantial
quantities. Recently, there has been a growing focus on harnessing the
potential of these types of waste as raw materials for producing value-added
products, such as microbial enzymes, using solid-state or submerged
fermentation systems. Among all the bacterial genera utilized in the
production of industrially important enzymes, the Bacillus genus stands out
as the most extensively employed for this purpose. In this study, the
production of various enzymes such as protease, pectinase, cellulase,
xylanase, lipase, and gelatinase was evaluated using the different Bacillus
strains isolated from vegetables? rhizosphere. The growth zones and halos
were observed to determine production of the following enzymes: cellulases,
proteases, pectinases, xylanases, gelatinases and lipases, confirming the
breakdown of complex substrates in the medium. Bacillus Pap 3 exhibited the
highest EAI (enzymatic activity index) value (4.00) for pectinase activity,
indicating its remarkable extracellular level of pectinase performance. The
highest enzymatic activity in terms of halo zone diameters was achieved in
the case of cellulases and xylanases production by the isolates Mah 1a and
Mah 1b. Further research would be directed towards the production of the
tested enzymes by Bacillus spp. on the waste streams of food and
agroindustry, but also towards the utilization of the proven enzymatic
activity to obtain other microbial value-added products to develop viable
bioprocess solutions usable in the circular economy context.