Fungal co-culture enabled co-fermentation of food waste for production of endoglucanase enzyme

The primary scenarios of biochemical industries include diverse applications with high demand and the costly manufacturing of microbial cellulolytic enzymes. Using these enzymes to turn cellulosic waste into fuel is one of the prime applications of these enzymes to produce green fuel. Nevertheless, low production and weak functional abilities make these enzymes expensive and technically non-viable. This study presents multifactor bioprocess approaches to enhance cellulolytic enzyme production and efficiency using a low-cost strategy. Co-fermentation of pea pods (PPs) and potato peel (PP) wastes as food wastes has been conducted for solid-state fermentation (SSF) using fungal strain-based co-culture. To set the SSF, the nutrient medium and moisture balance of SSF have been maintained using an extract of PPs and PP waste, which are found to be rich in sugar and starch composition. Starch may function as a natural inducer in the SSF process to alleviate enzyme production in the presence of sugar composition. At 37oC and pH 5.0, a maximum of 2.4U/mL FPA (filter paper activity) has been produced at a substrate ratio of 4:04 (PPs:PP) using 50% of the moisture content on day 5 of the harvesting period. Additionally, 24.7 IU/mL of CMCase (carboxymethyl cellulase) in day 8 and 18.8 IU/mL of BGL (β-Glucosidase) in day 7 have been obtained. A temperature of 37oC was found to be optimal, while a pH range of 5.0 to 9.0 was noticed to be optimal for maximum CMCase activity. Thus, the study may provide a sustainable approach to valorizing domestic solid food waste for the economic production of hydrolytic enzymes.