Abstract:
Itaconic acid (IA) is one of the hopeful substances within the cluster of organic acids. IA is used in artificial glass, bioactive compounds in pharmacy, medicine, agriculture, for the synthesis of fiber, resin, plastic, rubber, paints, surfactant, ion-exchange resins and lubricant. Most recurrently used microorganism for commercial production of IA is Aspergillus terreus. Some filamentous fungi belonging to Ustilaginales also produce IA. In the present work, an attempt was made to produce IA by Ustilago maydis employing Solid State Fermentation (SSF) from various agro wastes like ground nut shells, rice bran, rice husk, orange pulp, ground nut oil cake, orange pulp and sugarcane bagasse as carbon substrates, which were used after pretreatment. 10 g of each substrate was taken in a 500 ml conical flasks separately and supplemented with 20 mL nutrient solution containing glucose, at pH 3. One milliliter inoculum containing 1×107 spores was added and moisture was maintained at 60%. After incubation at 32°C for 5 days, the acid production was estimated by spectrophotometric method and by HPLC analysis. Interestingly, the yield of itaconic acid was promising with all the above substrates, where orange pulp, sugarcane bagasse and rice bran supported higher yields.
