Evaluation of Aspergillus fumigatus NTCC1222 as a source of enzymes for detergent industry

Abstract

Enzymes are playing crucial roles in improving the product quality in a number of conventional chemical based industries including detergent industry. Amylases are widely used in detergent industry as starch is a major component of various types of stains and amylases degrade starch. Therefore, amylases and other detergent enzymes can replace some chemicals used for starch degradation in detergent industries. In the present study, the compatibility of the amylase produced by wild-type and mutated strains of Aspergillus fumigatus NTCC1222 with various commercially available detergent formulations was checked. The quality of water used also play an important role in determining the efficacy of enzymes in detergent formulations. The influence of hardness of water (artificial hard water) used for preparing the detergent formulations on enzyme activity and stability, in comparison to tap water, under different incubation periods was thus also studied. The enzyme was highly compatible with all the detergent formulations evaluated during the study for at least one of the incubation periods tested, indicating that the enzyme could be very well used in detergent formulations. The enzyme was active even in hardwater though a loss in its activity was observed as compared to distilled water. • Aspergillus fumigatus NTCC1222- a promising alpha amylase source. • Compatibility of crude amylases with detergents. • Improved amylase effect in detergents.