Bioprotein Production from Agricultural Waste and Cheaper Carbon Source: Fulfilling the Hope of Millions

The necessity for exploring unconventional, non-agricultural means of food production, especially of proteins, has created a demand for the formulation of innovative and alternative protein rich food sources having a high nutritional value which are non competitive with food for human consumption, economically feasible and locally available. Thus, the production of bioproteins (proteins derived from micro-organisms) by fermentation of agricultural waste products is one of the most promising approaches of biotechnological innovations for increasing the availability of proteins. In addition to high quality, quantity will be more comparable to farm animals due to rapid growth rate of microorganisms and high production of bioproteins. Due to the increasing demand for bioproteins, the efficient strains, substrate and method must be used for high yield product. Moreover, increasing concern about pollution that occurs from agricultural and industrial waste has stimulated interest in converting waste materials into commercially valuable products. Therefore, this study emphasized on microbiological transformation of pineapple waste, which contains valuable components like sucrose, glucose, fructose and other nutrients. Phanerochaete chrysosporium PC-13(PC2094) was used as potential strain after screening various microorganism and agricultural wastes

CELL GROWTH KINETICS OF ASPERGILLUS ORYZAE IN INDUSTRIAL NATURAL RUBBER EFFLUENT SERUM

ABSTRACT A dynamic relationship exists between environmental conditions and the growth pattern of filamentous fungi. Growth kinetics such as the relationship between specific growth rate and the concentration of a substrate is one of the basic tools in microbiology. In such cases, a direct monitoring of the cell morphology and biomass distribution in the culture medium is potential. Hence the present work attempt to study the nutrient uptake and cell growth kinetics of a nonpathogenic fungus Aspergillus oryzae possessing the ability of bioremediation in the wasteful industrial rubber effluent. Four different models of Monod, Contois, Verhulst, and Tessier were used to investigate the cell growth kinetics in batch submerged fermentation process carried out in shake flasks. The compatibility of the experimental data fitted with Contois, Verhulst and Tessier models with the regression values are 0.65, 0.80, 0.21 and 0.84 respectively. Although Verhulst and Contois are the most suitable kinetic models to describe substrate utilization and cell growth behavior of filamentous fungi in submerged culture, the Tessier model was found best fitted with the experimental data. In the case of Monod, the maximum specific growth rate, µm and the half saturation constant, Ks were determined as 2.3 day -1 and 4.84 g/l respectively. For Verhulst, the maximum specific growth rate, µm and maximum biomass, Xm in terms of cell dry weight were determined as 0.9 day -

New potential carbon source for bioprotein production

Screening study was done to obtain the most potential substrate from agricultural wastes such as pineapple, honeydew and durian skins as main carbon source for bioprotein production utilizing potential strain of P. chrysosporium (PC 13) by liquid state bioconversion. In this study, two different media conditions have been used for selected substrate, which were fermentation without additional nutrient (WON) and with additional nutrient (WN) as to investigate the effect of wheat flour concentration as co-substrate on the bioprotein production. This study showed a promising result with improved protein for selected potential substrate, pineapple skins without wheat flour as a co-substrate, has produced 16.8 g L-1 biomass and 72.9 g kg-1 protein with 9.38 mg ml-1 initial sugar in fermentation at controlled process conditions of temperature of 32 °C; agitation of 150 rpm and pH 4.5. Bioprotein from local agro-waste can be a good source of supplement and additive in the animal feed as well as additives in the chemical and pharmaceutical products

Production of bioethanol from oil palm industrial solid waste by single-step bioconversion process

The bioethanol production was conducted by utilizing palm oil solid residues, empty fruit bunches (EFB) with the treatment of mixed culture of fungi and yeast in solid state bioconversion process. The compatibility of several fungal and yeast, were tested as to develop direct solid state bioconversion using the potential mixed culture. The mixed culture of fungi (Trichoderma harzianum) and yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has found to be the most potential as they produced higher ethanol among the other combination of mixed culture in liquid-broth fermentation for compatibility test. The optimization of process condition was done with varied level of moisture content, pH, inoculum size, concentration of co-substrate and mineral solution by using the central composite design (CCD). The optimum process conditions with maximum ethanol production (14.1%) were: moisture of 60%, pH of 7, inoculum size of 4%, co-substrate concentration of 2% and minerals concentration of 2%. The result indicated that pH, co-substrate and minerals concentration were highly significant (p<0.001)followed by moisture content (p<0.005) and inoculum size (p<0.005). The coefficient of determination (R2) was 99.6% which satisfied the adjustment of experimental data in the model. A validation experiment was been carried out to evaluate the process conditions obtained from model

Screening of new potential carbon source for bioprotein production

This research was carried out to increase the availability of high quality affordable proteins by fermentation of agricultural wastes, which is one of the most promising breakthroughs of biotechnological innovations. Screening study was done to obtain the most potential substrate from agricultural wastes such as pineapple, honeydew and durian skins as main carbon source for bioprotein production. Liquid state bioconversion was done by using a previously screened potential and safe microbial strain P. chrysosporium. In this study, the effect of wheat flour concentration as co-substrate, which will surely reduce the cost of production. The fermentation was carried out without additional nutrient (WON) and with additional nutrient (WN). Pineapple akin showed a significant amount of protein production (72.9 g kg^-1) without wheat flour as co-substrate on the fourth day of fermentation with controlled process conditions of temperature of 32 degree celcius; agitation of 150 rpm; pH of 4.5 and 2% (v/v) inoculum. Bioprotein from local agro-waste can be a good source of supplement and additive in the animal feed as well as additives in the chemical and pharmaceutical products