Employment of liquid pineapple waste for the production of xanthan gum using xanthomonas campestris ATCC 13951

Natural polysaccharides such as xanthan are known for their biodegradability, biocompatibility and non-toxicity. Due to these unique characteristics, this biomaterial has been extensively investigated for many applications in the food, pharmaceutical, chemical and energy industries. For this, xanthan is needed to be produced in large amounts to cater for the industrial demand and use an alternative environmentally friendly method. Researchers have recently focused on the use of agro-waste in the production of biopolymers such as xanthan gum to reduce waste in the agricultural and food processing industry. The current method of producing xanthan relies on commercial carbon and other trace elements in the fermentation medium. As a result, the goal of this study was to evaluate the usage of liquid pineapple waste obtained from industrial waste as an alternative carbon substrate for xanthan gum production using Xanthomonas campestris ATCC 13951. In this study, different types of carbon sources such as glucose were evaluated for xanthan production. The cell dry weight and xanthan production during the 96-hours fermentation process were used to determine the efficacy of the bioprocess. It was found that liquid pineapple waste produces a 5 g/L amount of xanthan which can be used as an alternative substrate. It can be concluded that the concentration of 60 g/L of LPW was significant enough to serve as a basis for suitable carbon sources.