Production of valuable enzymes through fermentation of tropical fruit dregs

Abstract

The amount of waste in Malaysia is getting higher due to the increasing of population and development. The statistic showed that Malaysian generated 23,000 tonnes of waste in the year 2008 and the amount is expected to rise until 30,000 tonnes by the year 2020. From the waste generated, there is about 48% of organic and food waste. Therefore, it has been many solutions suggested nowadays to solve the organic waste management problem, especially in the conversion of waste into value added products. In this study, a bioconversion of selected tropical fruit dregs into valuable enzymes was investigated. The tropical fruit dregs used in the fermentation were papaya, pineapple and guava. The optimization of amylase activity, lipase activity, reducing sugar concentration and biomass content were carried out for 120th day of the tropical fruit dregs fermentation by response surface methodology. The fermentation of guava waste performed an optimum amylase activity at 0.05 U/ mg whereas the fermentation of papaya, pineapple and guava waste showed an optimum lipase activity at 111.33 U/mL. For the optimization of multiple responses, the combination of papaya, pineapple and guava waste performed the optimum enzyme activities at 95th day of the fermentation period. The optimum amylase and lipase activities were 0.0289 U/mg and 105.971 U/mL respectively. These valuable enzymes that produced during the fermentation process are believed to be a good cleaning agent.