OPTIMISING THE EFFECT OF STIMULANTS ON CITRIC ACID PRODUCTION FROM COCOYAM STARCH USING ASPERGILLUS NIGER
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/njt.344.1002Keywords:
Optimisation, Citric acid, Cocoyam, Fermentation, MethanolAbstract
Additives such as low molecular weight alcohols, trace metals, phytate, lipids etc have been reported to stimulate citric acid production. Hence the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of stimulating the metabolic activity of Aspergillus niger for the purpose of improved citric acid production from cocoyam starch. A three-variable, three-level Box-Behnken design (BBD) was used to develop a statistical model to study the effects of Zinc (II) ion, Iron (III) ion and methanol on the production of citric acid. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimise the effects of these stimulants. The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) carried out on the model showed that the model was statistically significant (p< 0.0001) and did not show lack of fit (R2=0.997). The results also showed that citric acid production increased when the levels of zinc and methanol were increased. Intermediate levels of iron were required to produce citric acid at optimum levels. Results obtained from RSM showed that the optimum levels of zinc, iron and methanol were 4.5 g/L, 6.87 g/L and 3.0 %v/v respectively. Under these conditions, the maximum citric acid concentration was obtained as 108 g/L. Validation of the model indicated no significant difference between predicted and experimental values.
Downloads
Issue
Section
License
The contents of the articles are the sole opinion of the author(s) and not of NIJOTECH.
NIJOTECH allows open access for distribution of the published articles in any media so long as whole (not part) of articles are distributed.
A copyright and statement of originality documents will need to be filled out clearly and signed prior to publication of an accepted article. The Copyright form can be downloaded from http://nijotech.com/downloads/COPYRIGHT%20FORM.pdf while the Statement of Originality is in http://nijotech.com/downloads/Statement%20of%20Originality.pdf
For articles that were developed from funded research, a clear acknowledgement of such support should be mentioned in the article with relevant references. Authors are expected to provide complete information on the sponsorship and intellectual property rights of the article together with all exceptions.
It is forbidden to publish the same research report in more than one journal.