A study was conducted to find out the potential of castor seed coat waste for production of cellulase by Aspergillus niger. The powdered waste was fermented in a flask containing mineral salt medium. Various process parameters were optimized for enhancing the yield of cellulase. The maximum activity of CMCase (28.14 U/ gram dry substrate) and FPase (18.14 U/ gram dry substrate) were recorded under optimum conditions of inoculum size (9 discs), incubation period (120h), substrate concentration (7g), pH (5.5), temperature (35°C), moisture level (1:3), CMC (0.5%) as carbon source and pepton (0.5%) as nitrogen source. From this study, it can be concluded that Aspergillus niger holds the potential of converting castor seed coat waste into cellulose.
CMCase and FPase activity, agricultural waste, optimization
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