The effects of substrate thickness in the production of pectinase by Aspergillus niger LFP-1 utilizing pamelo peels as a sole carbon source through solid substrate fermentation in a shallow tray system
*Taufiq, M. M. J. and Darah, I.
Industrial Biotechnology Research Laboratory (IBRL), School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Penang, Malaysia. *Corresponding author: fiqz04@yahoo.com.sg.
Abstract
Pectinase is one of the important enzyme that has a lot of commercial applications with desirable biochemical and physiochemical characteristics. Pamelo peel is one of citrus fruit family that has high content of pectin. Therefore this present study was conducted to produce pectinase using pamelo peels as a substrate as well as a sole carbon source. Aspergillus niger LFP-1 was used as a chosen microorganism and solid substrate fermentation was selected to produce pectinase since it was a simple method and practicable to be used. Substrate thickness was the important parameter which should be emphasized to improve the production of pectinase under a shallow tray system since it can influence the capability of fungus to penetrate the substrate and subsequently affected pectinase production. The different substrate thickness viz. 0.3 cm, 0.6 cm, 0.9 cm and 1.2 cm which equalized to 20 g, 40 g, 60 g and 80 g of solid substrate, respectively, were investigated in the present study. The results revealed that the substrate thickness of 0.6 cm which was equivalent to 40 gram of pamelo peels was the best substrate thickness for pectinase production in a tray system with 7.460 U/g of fermented substrate.
Key words: Pectinase, pamelo peels, Aspergillus niger LFP-1, solid substrate fermentation, substrate thickness, tray system.