DOI: 10.5176/2251-2489_ BioTech14.66
Authors: Suchita Gera, Prakash Kumar BG and Ramachandran Subramanian
Abstract: Pre-treatment methods are commonly applied to process raw biomass substrates for microbial fermentation processes. Such upstream processes make the biomass materials amenable for uptake and subsequent product formation. The fruit pulp of Ziziphus sp., popularly known as the Indian Ber, has been used for its application as a substrate for fermentation processes. Ber fruit pulp treated with dilute acid and subsequent concentrated mixture was purified using powdered activated charcoal which has adsorbing properties to remove the hydrophobic impurities. Along with the test sample, two other biomass-substrates, namely, molasses and corn syrup were prepared at 5{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465}, 10{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465}, 15{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465} and 20{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465}. Eight industrially important micro-organisms were subjected to these substrates. It was observed that unlike corn syrup and test sample, almost all microbes grew well in molasses. In test sample and corn syrup only lower concentrations at 5{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465} and 10{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465} were conducive to microbial growth. Even in molasses, the relative performance of the micro-organisms decreased considerably beyond the 15{6e6090cdd558c53a8bc18225ef4499fead9160abd3419ad4f137e902b483c465} substrate concentration. The higher concentrations tended to inhibit the growth of micro-organisms probably due to high osmotic effect of the soluble sugars contained in the substrates. The substrate developed from the Ber pulp concentrate has applications as a substrate in microbial derived products through fermentation processes.
Keywords: biomass; substrate; pre-treatment; fermentation
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