Effect of Aeration, Agitation and Inoculum Age on Submerged Fermentation Process for the Production of Glucoamylase by Aspergillus awamori NRRL 3112

D. K. DANIEL1, D. DAS2 and A. KRASTANOV3
1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore-632014, Tamil Nadu, India
2 Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, West Bengal, India
3 Department of Biotechnology, University of Food Technologies, BG-4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Abstract

DANIEL, D. K., D. DAS and A. KRASTANOV, 2004. Effect of aeration, agitation and inoculum age on submerged fermentation process for the production of glucoamylase by Aspergillus awamori NRRL 3112. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 10: 583-590

Glucoamylase production by Aspergillus awamori NRRL 3112 has been carried out in submerged fermentation process and Box-Behnken experimental design has been employed to study the effect of different variables on glucoamylase production. Three variables viz, inoculum age, agitator speed and rate of aeration have been selected for study to identify their effect and interactions on the maximization of glucoamylase activity in batch system. A second order polynomial regression model has been developed using the experimental data. It has been observed that glucoamylase activity is significantly affected by the changes in the inoculum age, rate of aeration and agitator speed. The experimental values agree well with those predicted by the model and the correlation coefficient has been found to be 0.957. The optimum conditions of agitator speed, rate of aeration and inoculum age for maximum glucoamylase production are found to be 600 rpm, 0.5 vvm and 29.6 h respectively.

Key words: aeration, agitation, inoculum, fermentation, glucoamylase, Aspergullus awamori NRRL 3112