Sheep wool has become an undesirable product of sheep production. Burning and uncontrolled bacterial decomposition due to disposal in the natural environment are very polluting to the environment ways of breeders handling waste wool. One of the useful uses of sheep wool waste is composting. In nature, there are bacteria that contain keratinase enzymes, with which they are able to completely break down the wool. The decomposition process of wool during composting can be accelerated by adding the keratinolytic bacteria. The result is a quality compost. In this master thesis, we tested the addition of pre-isolated aerobic keratinolytic bacteria to a compost pile containing sheep wool. In parallel, we composted sheep wool without the addition of keratinolytic bacteria. We monitored the process by various factors such as temperature, moisture, organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) concentration, C:N ratio, and dry and organic matter content. In addition to testing the keratinolytic activity of the bacteria in the compost pile, we also tested their performance under laboratory conditions, where we performed a qualitative and quantitative enzyme assay. While the bacteria showed the ability to decompose sheep wool under laboratory conditions, we found that the composting process was relatively poor and that the addition of microbial cultures did not accelerate the wool decomposition process.
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