Direct Solid-State Fermentation of Soybean Processing Residues for the Production of Fungal Chitosan by Mucor rouxii

Andro Mondala^*, Ramea Al-Mubarak, James Atkinson, Shaun Shields, Brian Young, Yurguen Dos Santos Senger, Jan Pekarovic

Department of Chemical and Paper Engineering, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/msce.2015.32003                

Abstract

The feasibility of utilizing soybean-processing residues such as soybean meal and hulls as substrates for chitosan production by the fungus Mucor rouxii ATCC 24905 via solid-state fermentation (SSF) was investigated. The effects of the type of soybean-based substrate, length of cultivation period, substrate moisture content, substrate pH, incubation temperature and extraction conditions on chitosan yield were determined. The results showed that a maximum fungal chitosan yield of up to 3.44% by dry substrate weight (34.4 g/kg) could be achieved using a pure soybean meal substrate with an initial moisture content of 50% (w/w) and pH of 5 - 6 incubated for six days at 25°C. A more severe heat treatment (autoclaving vs. refluxing) resulted in higher chitosan extraction yields regardless of the strength of extraction reagents. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis of the fungal chitosan revealed its degree of deacetylation (DDA) to be between 55% and 60%.

Keywords

Solid-State Fermentation, Fungal Chitosan, Biopolymers, Bioconversion, Agro-Industrial Residues

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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