Anais do Congresso Paranaense de Microbiologia
Anais do III Congresso Paranaense de Microbiologia

Sophorolipid is an extracellular biosurfactant belongs to the glycolipid group produced mainly by Candida bombicola, because of its very expressive production yields. This surfactant has large potential for industrial applications due its tensoactive characteristics and biodegradability. However, the high cost of sophorolipid production constitute one barrier for make it economically competitive, and the use of low cost substrates derived from industrial waste could represent one alternative for production of this biosurfactant. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the production of sophorolipids by Candida bombicola ATCC 22214 with chicken fat, a residue from the poultry industry. The production was conducted in fed-batch fermentations with the composition in g L-1: 77.5 of glucose, 2.5 of yeast extract and initial concentration of 75 of chicken fat, followed by sequential additions of 20 g L-1 every 48h until 144h. Fermentations were conducted in triplicate in 1 L Erlenmeyer flasks containing 100 ml of production medium for 192h at 30ºC in a rotary shaker at 150rpm. Samples taken periodically along the fermentation were extracted twice with equal volume of ethyl acetate and centrifugated at 13.050 g for 15 minutes. The cell pellet collected was washed and dried for determining the cell concentration. The ethyl acetate presented in the organic phase was removed by rota-evaporation and the residue was washed with hexane and methanol to remove the remaining hydrophobic substances. The crude sophorolipids were collected from the methanol phase, followed by rota-evaporation and gravimetric quantification. Sophorolipids production obtained with chicken fat was 15.36 g L-1. The production of sophorolipids is influenced by the composition of the hydrophobic component and an increase in production is observed with the presence of C16 and C18 fatty acids. Therefore, chicken fat was a viable source for the production of sophorolipids because it has high proportions of C16 and C18:1 fatty acids in its composition. It is possible to conclude that the production of sophorolipids with industrial residues, such as chicken fat, is viable and future studies that aim the sophorolipids production in large scale with alternative sources are of main importance to reduce the cost of production.