(572c) Industrial Platform Design for Fungal Phytase Production in Semi-Industrial Scale

The production of microbial industrial enzymes has recently drawn attention in the biotechnology of animal feeds. Of different enzymes applied, phytase (EC 3.2.1.8) has become an important microbial enzyme, which is applied as feed additive for monogastric livestock. Phytase hydrolyses phytate (myo-inositol-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexakisphosphate), which is the main form for storing phosphorus in most of the seeds and grains used as animal feed components. This enzyme is available in plant in low concentration and thus, its necessary to supplement the feed with exogenous addition of this enzyme. Nowadays, this enzyme was isolated from different microbial strains, however, the main production process involve the cultivation of fungi belongs to Aspergillus group such as A. niger and A. ficcum in either solid state or submerged fermentation system. Production of fungal phytase faces two main challenges. First, controlling the growth morphology in the bioreactor to achieve high system productivity. Second, facilitating the enzyme excretion to shorten the production time. To overcome the first bottle-neck of this process, cells were cultivated in stirred tank bioreactor under certain conditions to produce micropellet (not more than 400mm diameter) to reduce mass transfer problems inside the microbial pellet. The second problem was also solved in bioreactor system by addition of surfactants and increasing the bioreactor pressure to increase enzyme excretion rate and shorten the production time. In this work, complete industrial platform for fungal phytase proposed using starch as feed-stock to reduce the production cost.