Strategies to Enhance Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production from Sugarcane Molasses by <i>Cupriavidus</i> <i>necator</i> 11599

The production of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is an opportunity to gradually replace some plastics produced from fossil resources. The use of agro-industrial waste to produce PHA is one of the most efficient techniques, because the cost of production is high. Molasse is waste from the sugar industry. It has already been transformed into PHA via fermentation. But Cupriavidus necator is unable to produce PHA from raw molasse. So, several authors have tried to overcome this problem by pretreating molasse before production. In this study, fermentation was conducted in a shake-flask with Cupriavidus necator. Three types of pretreatments of molasse were conducted to enhance PHA production: i) sulfuric acid pretreatment; ii) enzymatic pretreatment and iii) pretreatment with activated carbon. Molasse pretreated accumulates up to a maximum PHA content of 64.56, 75.64 and 58.14 wt.% respectively with (15:100) ratio for acid, (15:100) ratio for enzyme and (20:100) ratio for activated carbon. The obtained result showed an enhancement of PHA production from sugarcane molasses.