Banana peels as a cost effective substrate for fungal chitosan synthesis: optimisation and characterisation

ABSTRACT

Massive accumulation of unprocessed banana peels enthralls sustainable issues as they are eventually dumped as landfills leading to emission of obnoxious gasses. To avoid these persisting challenges the present study shims lights on chitosan production from the characterised fungal strain using banana peel hydrolysate as an effective medium. Substantial amount of carbohydrate in banana peels serves as a potential solution for fungal chitosan production in a view to attain a circular bioeconomy and repurposed for synthesis of beneficial products in a cost effective manner. Presence of fermentable sugars in banana peels qualifies them as a feasible substrate which could be exploited for scaling up of fungal chitosan synthesis. Screened isolate was subjected to statistical optimisation using formulated medium to elucidate the influential factors that had significant effect on chitosan production. The harvested chitosan biomass was characterised through standardised techniques and evaluated for further studies. Statistical optimisation reveals that ammonium nitrate (5 g/L), pH (6) and incubation time (144 hrs) were the three PBD variables that had a greater influence on fungal chitosan yield. The validated developed model exhibited maximum yield of 200 mg/L, a 4.4 fold increase than unoptimised medium (45 mg/L). These findings emphasise the fermentative synthesis of chitosan through valorisation of banana peel prop up a complementary approach in concomitant with preserving renewable resources and bioproduct formation.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Fungal chitosan
• banana peel hydrolysate
• RSM
• characterisation
• antimicrobial activity

Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for supporting the Department of Microbial Biotechnology, Bharathiar University under DST-FIST scheme to have necessary facilities for the successful venture of this research work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are thankful to Bharathiar University – University Research fellowship (URF) [Award no C2/17584/2019; Date – 03.09.2019] for financial assistance.