Development of a solid-state fermentation process for production of bacterial

nitrogen sources, phosphate, different metal ions, have been known to affect the

production of α- amylase with regards to SSFTherefore, optimization of processing

parameters are one of the most important techniques used for the production of

enzymes in large quantities. Several authors have described the modification of

nutrients and cultured conditions for amylase production with various Bacillus

strains using flask culture and batch fermentation (Hassan and Karim 2012; Serin

et al., 2012; Singh et al., 2014; Rai and Solanki 2014)

There are several bioprocesses that have been developed utilizing the agro

materials for the production of bulk chemicals and value-added fine products

including enzymes. Solid-state fermentation (SSF) might be attractive technology

for value-addition and utilization of cheaper agricultural residues for the

production of enzymes. Thus the present study describes the evaluation of various

agro-byproducts for α -amylase production under solid state fermentation and the

optimization of α-amylase production under different processing conditions as

well as medium components.

Materials and Methods

Place of Work

The present study was conducted in the Department of Microbiology and

Fermentation Technology, Jacob School of Biotechnology and Bioengineering,

Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology & Sciences (Deemed to

be University), Allahabad (U.P).

Procurement and Maintenance of Culture

Bacillus licheniformis (MTCC 429) used in the present study was obtained from

the Microbial Technology Culture Collection, Institute of Microbial Technology

(IMTECH), Chandigarh (Punjab), India. The strain was grown on nutrient agar

slants and maintained at 4°C.

Substrates and its pretreatment

Various agro by-products and their residues viz. Wheat flour, Barley flour, Corn

flour, Gram flour, Moong husk, Arhar husk, Mustard oil cake, coconut oil cake,

Banana peel, Potato peel, Sweet Potato peel, Soybean hull, Wheat bran, Rice

bran, and Sugarcane baggase were used as substrate for solid state fermentation

(SSF) and procured from local market of Allahabad city, India. Pretreatment of

agro-residues were performed by the following method described by Asgar et al.,

(2002) by chopping agro residues like bran, peel and baggase and dried (70°C)

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