ABSTRACT
Significant growth of the biodiesel industry has lead to an increased availability of its principal by-product crude glycerol. This study deals with the production of lactic acid, using biodiesel waste-derived crude glycerol as a sole carbon source and ammonium sulphate as the nitrogen source. It was observed that 15 g/L of semipurified glycerol, 2 g/L NH4SO4, 0.03 g/L FeSO4.7H2O, 0.04 g/L MgSO4.H2O, 0.3 g/L MnSO4.H2O and 1 g/L Sodium acetate were the optimum concentrations for the production of lactic acid. Similarly, an incubation period of 40 h, pH of 6.5 and a temperature of 37°C were found to be optimum. The results suggested that crude glycerol and ammonium sulphate could serve as a good cheap alternative, for the existing resources.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Management, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Sriperumbudur (Tk.) for their support and National chemical laboratories, Pune for providing the microbial culture.