Corn Steep Liquor as a Nutrition Adjunct for the Production of Aspergillus niger Lipase and Hydrolysis of Oils Thereof

Corn steep liquor (CSL) has been used as a nutrition adjunct for the production of an extracellular lipase from Aspergillus niger, which has immense importance as an additive in laundry detergent formulations. A five-level four-factorial central composite design was chosen to determine the optimal medium components with four critical variables, namely, CSL, NH4H2PO4, Na2HPO4, and sesame oil, that were found to be influential for lipase production by the classical one-factor-at-a-time method. The model suggested that all of the factors chosen had a significant impact on lipase production, and the optimum values of the influential parameters were CSL, 2.0%, w/v; NH4H2PO4, 0.05%, w/v; Na2HPO4, 0.75%, w/v; and sesame oil, 2.0%, w/v, with an activity of 26.7 U/mL at 48 h and 30 °C, which was 2.16-fold higher than the initial activity (12 U/mL) obtained by the conventional one-factor-at-a-time method. Furthermore, the enzyme has good potential for the hydrolysis of vegetable oils and fish oils, and a hydrolytic ratio of 88.73% was obtained with palm oil at 48 h. The utilization of CSL and sesame oil for lipase production from A. niger makes the process green, because both are renewable substrates and economically viable at an industrial scale.