Monday, April 19, 2010
1-35

Agro-industrial residues reuse as nutrient source during fructooligosaccharides production by solid-state fermentation

Solange I. Mussatto, Ligia R. Rodrigues, and José A. Teixeira. IBB - Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, Braga, Portugal

Corn cobs, coffee silverskin, and cork oak were evaluated as nutrient source during the fructooligosaccharides (FOS) production by Aspergillus japonicus, under solid-state cultivation conditions. Usually, FOS are produced by submerged fermentations from a cultivation medium enriched with nutrients such as yeast extract NaNO3, K2HPO4, MgSO4x7H2O, and KCl. The use of corn cobs, coffee silverskin or cork oak in this fermentation process could be an alternative to reduce the involved costs, as well as to add value to these agro-industrial residues. Fermentation runs were performed in Petri plates containing the support material moistened to 70% with a 200 g/l sucrose solution. The plates were inoculated with a spore suspension to obtain 2x106 spores/gram dry substrate, and statically maintained at 28 ºC for 48 h. For comparison, assays were also performed using a synthetic material as solid support, which was moistened, inoculated and maintained under the same conditions described above. According to the results, all the agro-industrial residues acted as nutrient source for the microorganism, since FOS production occurred from all of them, but not in the medium containing the synthetic material as solid substrate. Solid-state fermentation systems are interesting since the product can be obtained in a concentrated form, giving high yields, and the costs are low mainly when using agro-industrial wastes as substrate or nutrient source. Acknowledgements: FCT (research Project SFRH/BPD/38212/2007).

See more of Poster Session One Sponsored by Genencor
See more of General Submissions

See more of The 32nd Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals (April 19-22, 2010)