Production of itaconic acid from Chlorella vulgaris biomass using Aspergillus alabamensis MN907795

The patronage of relatively costly materials in industrial production of products incurs certain degrees of economic implications when the products can be seamlessly produced using materials of insignificant value. The quest to arrest this situation is the drive behind the fermentation of aquatic lignocellulosic waste Chlorella vulgaris biomass using Aspergillus alabamensis MN907795. The biomass was analyzed for the possession of some nutrients and it demonstrated appreciable quantity of carbohydrate, protein, lipid, ash, moisture, and fiber which are suitable for itaconic acid (IA) fermentation. Prior to the “one-factor-at-a-time” (OFAT) studies, IA was produced using carbon (10%), nitrogen (5%), pH 3.0, inoculum size (10%) and phosphorus (0.5%) for 10 days, and the best results (17.09g/L) was recorded on day 6. The OFAT studies were carried out to observe the influence(s) of the parameters on both IA yield and cell growth and the best results of IA: 17.8g/L, 18.0g/L, 18.65g/L, 18.9g/L, and 18.55g/L were recorded from carbon 10%, inoculum size 12%, nitrogen 3%, pH 3.0, and phosphorus 0.5% respectively; while the best cell dry masses of 1.73g, 2.24g, 1.38g, 1.47g and 1.88g were observed from 12% carbon, 10% inoculum size, 7% nitrogen, pH 3.0 and1.0% phosphorus respectively. One way analysis of variance was carried out to evaluate their significance using F-test but only phosphorus and inoculum size were considered significant for IA and cell growth respectively with P ≤ 0.05. This study has shown the feasibility of IA production using A. alabamensis MN907795 as production organism and C. vulgaris biomass as carbon source.