Fungal Production of Xylanase from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches via Solid State Cultivation

Abstract

The abundance of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB), the lignocellulosic biomass waste from Crude Palm Oil (CPO) industries, offers a potential for its application as raw material for biorefinery. Its xylan content in particular, suggests that EFB can be used as raw material for xylanase production. This article studies xylanase production by fungal Trichoderma viride ITB CC L67, Aspergillus niger ITB CC L51, and Penicillium sp. ITB CC L96 using EFB as the substrate in solid state fermentation. The aims of this research are to evaluate the incubation time to produce the highest xylanase activity, to explore the effect of particle size of EFB on xylanase activity and to determine the optimal operation condition of each significant variable, including temperature and substrate ratio (g EFB in mL liquid medium) using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The method of Central Composite Design (CCD) is employed to investigate the individual crucial component of the operation condition, which significantly affected the enzyme activity. The incubation time of T. viride, A. niger, and Penicillium sp. were observed to produce xylanase . The result show that the xylanase activity is increase in the early phase of incubation at 0-36 hours, and remained constant afterward. At the time of 36 hours, the activity of xylanase produced by T. viride, A. niger and Penicillium sp. were subsequently 815 U/mL, 624 U/mL and 789 U/mL or equal to 8,146 U/g, 6,243 U/g and 7,892 U/g dry substrate. The particle size of the EFB is affect the growth and hence affects on xylanase production. It shows that the smaller size of EFB resulted in better fungal growth, which was indicated by higher biomass dry weight and higher protein content, as well as higher xylanase activity. The optimum conditions obtained xylanase activity is 740.6 U/mL or 5,095.5 U/g substrate, produced by T.viride ITB CC L.67 at 32.8oC and substrate ratio of 0.63.