Biosurfactants in the Food Industry - Biosurfactants: Research Trends and Applications - page 189

be used directly to BS production. Ecover (Belgium N.V.) has produce sophorolipids
from C. bombicola using vegetable oil (rapeseed oil) in combination with glucose
as carbon source. The product shows cost-efficient production and excellent perfor-
mance resulting in hard surface cleaning applications. This is an example of success-
ful transformation of BS production from a laboratory development to an industrial
process using renewable resource based on plant biomass.
Bs P roDuCtion from s uGar i nDustry
Molasses is one such by-product of sugar cane and sugar beets industry. The princi-
pal reasons for widespread use of molasses as substrate are its low price compared to
other sources of sugar and the presence of several other compounds besides sucrose
(Makkar and Cameotra, 1999). Molasses has been assayed to BS production using
different microorganisms. P. aeruginosa GS3 was reported to produce rhamnolipids
during growth on molasses and corn steep liquor as the primary carbon and nitro-
gen sources (Patel and Desai, 1997). P. luteola and P. putida produced rhamnolipid
BSs from different sugar beet molasses concentration (1%-5% w/v). The rhamno-
lipid production increased with the increase in the concentration of molasses, and
maximum production occurred when 5% (w/v) of molasses were used (Onbasli and
Aslim, 2009). B. subtilis also was described to produce BS from molasses. The
authors described an optimized medium containing 16% of molasses in an effort to
reduce the production process costs (Abdel-Mawgoud et al., 2008).
Bs from s tarCh -r iCh w astes
The processing of carbohydrate-rich agriculture products (cassava and potato)
can generate large amount of waste. For example, the production of 1 ton of cas-
sava flour generates 300 L of cassava wastewater; consequently, the treatment
and disposal of this waste represent a great economic cost to the cassava flour
industry as well as an environmental problem. Thereby there is an increased need
for a better management of this waste. Nitschke and Pastore (2004) described
the surfactin BS production by B. subtilis from cassava effluent as substrate. The
BS exhibited good surface activity and produced reasonable yields of surfactin.
P. aeruginosa also was related to produce BS from cassava wastewater, and this
waste showed potential as an alternative substrate for rhamnolipid production
(Costa et al., 2009).
Fox and Bala (2000) demonstrated that potato processing effluent was a suitable
alternative carbon source to generate surfactant from B. subtilis . Das and Mukherjee
(2007) evaluated the BS production using powdered potato peels as substrate, and
the lipopeptide BS showed good surface activity and yield.
Bs from D airy i nDustry
The dairy industry involves processing raw milk into products including milk, but-
ter, cheese, and yogurt, using processes such as chilling, pasteurization, and homog-
enization. Typical by-products include buttermilk, whey, and their derivatives.