"Surfactin production by Bacillus subtilis UFPEDA 438 using sugarcane molasse as substrate"
Biosurfactant, surfactin, sugarcane molass
The biosurfactants are drawing attention of both academy and industry by showing advantages mainly when compared to the chemical surfactants since they can be produced using renewable resources by fermentation. Among the different classes of biosurfactants lipopeptides outstanding by their antibiotic activities, mainly the biosurfactant known as surfactin. Due to its properties it has beed used in many fields such as bioremediation, biology, medice and so on. However, as the others biosurfactants the production cost still is the bottleneck. Then the use of lower cost substrate can be one strategy in order to reduce the production costs. In this study the surfactin was produced by Bacillus subtilis UFPEDA 438 using sugarcane molasse as subtrate in order to reduce costs. The microoganism was cultivated in shaker using a medium containing 4% surgacane molasse. The influence of temperature, agitation as well as the aeration ratio in the surfactin production was investigated. The samples were taken during cultivation until 72 h in order to record the substrate and cells concentration as well as the concentration of surfactin produced. The best results showed that for cultivation at (200 rpm, 36 ºC and 0.4 aeration ration the concentration of surfactin was 199,45 ± 0,13 mg/L reached after 24 h, the substrate to product yield (YP/S) was 0,022 g/g and product productivity (PP) was 8,19 mg/L.h after 24 h.