Microbiologists/Biochemists; how can I make fertilizer and soaps from bacteria and fungi?

[Ulysses1994XF04]

So I've been toying with the idea of building a home lab as a hobby for a while now. I have the idea of culturing bacteria and fungus on soil, compost, food-waste and so on harvesting them for vitamins and nutrients for my plants and their membrane phospholipids to make soaps and cleaning agents; you can make soap by mixing fatty acids with strong bases like NaOH. You can make your own NaOH at home just by electrolyzing salt water (outside of course, since poisonous HCl and Cl2 gas is evolved)

You can break up cells by flash freezing them in acetone or isopropyl mixed with dry ice (the poor-man's liquid nitrogen) and grinding them up. You'll have a slurry of cell components when it evaporates. You can also make a centrifuge just by attaching a plastic disc with holes for microfuge tubes onto a power drill.

The thing is, how would I separate out all of the bacterial and fungal chemical components? How would I isolate the phospholipds? And how would I get them to discharge their phosphate groups and fatty acids (or would that happen on contact with NaOH automatically?)

[Cathal Garvey]

Would love to offer more answers right now, but here's a quick tip: don't use NaOH, use KOH. It's easy to get: just soak white ash from a hardwood fire and then leave to dry or carefully boil down, and you'll get plenty of KOH.

Careful: hot and concentrated KOH is insanely corrosive. I hear even some glasses can get dissolved. For your own safety, don't ever use metal to stir it, especially aluminium..

Ulysses1994XF04 <ben...@comcast.net> wrote:

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[Cory Geesaman]

These are great for stirring (though I typically use them backwards):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pk-12-152mm-Glass-Stirring-Rods-w-pre-fitted-policeman-/200731034174?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ebc80823e#ht_2026wt_1139 

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[Nathan McCorkle]

Is this what you want:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactin#Detergent_effect

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Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[Nathan McCorkle]

Surfactin is an amphiphilic molecule, like many soaps and detergents
are (thats how water can dissolve oils):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiphilic

[Nathan McCorkle]

this maybe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saponin

[Nathan McCorkle]

have you ever searched something like this, there are several interesting hits:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Surfactin%20reactor

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-Nathan