Fungal Isolation and the Production of its Biomass in a Palm Oil Medium

• Main Authors: Che Omar, Ibrahim, Suan Li, Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press 1993
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/3075/1/Fungal_Isolation_and_the_Production.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/3075/
• Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia

A fungus which was identified to be Rhizopus arrhizus was selected as a potential microorganism for the production of biomass using a palm oil medium. Using the optimized medium composition and culture conditions (%, w/v) : palm oil, 4.0; peptone, 2.0; Mg S04' 7H20, 0.07; NaC!, 0.5; CaCI2.2H20, 0.01; Tween 20, 1.2, pH 7.0 at 37"C, agitation speed, 200 rpm and inoculum size, 1 X 104 spores/ml, a maximum biomass production and fat consumption of about 16.2 gil and 82%, respectively, were obtained. Compared to the unoptimized conditions, this is an increase of 62% and 105% in biomass production and fat consumption, respectively. Proximate analysis of the biomass revealed.that the protein and nucleic acid content were 42.8 and 2.2%, respectively. Amino acid profiles were found to be comparable to those of the FAO reference.