Alvaro A. De Araujo, Deparatamento de Engenharia de Alimentos, UFS, Cidade Universitária, São Cristovão, SE, Brazil, Cristine Amarante, Departamento de Engenharia Química, UFPA, Cidade Universitária, Belém, Lucia Lourenço, Faculdade de Engenharia de Alimentos, UFPA, Cidade Universitária, Belém, and Rosângela Bergamasco, Departamento de Engenharia Química, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Av. Colombo, 5790, bloco: D-90, Maringá, Brazil.
Enzymes production via fermentation process on solid substrates, using filamentous fungi, has an important application in ecology, nutrition and industrial microbiology. The application of this technique to bioconversion and valorization of agro industrial wastes is the best process. In the Amazon region, mainly in the north of Brazil, the economy is based on agro business. A great amount of wastes is therefore produced but they could be commercialized with a higher aggregated value. This work has the objective of applying a solid state fermentation process to regional agro industrial wastes in order to obtain cellulase enzyme. Trichoderma harzianum strains, obtained at FIOCRUZ – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were tested. The results obtained with these fungi strains permitted the selection of regional fruit waste, taperebá (Spondias mombin L) as the solid substrate. Taperebá is a typical Amazon fruit with high commercialized value. After the selection of one fungi strain and the solid media, the most important process variables were studied using a factorial design experiment, 24-1 with IV resolution, which allowed us to conclude that the celullolytic activity at this substrate were influenced by both the initial substrate temperature and humidity during the beginning of the fermentation process. Finally, it was observed that after 4 days of fermentation, the enzyme begins to loose its activity and furthermore the mathematical model could not describe satisfactorily the experiments after this period for a 90 % confidence interval
