Jaggery: a novel substrate for pullulan production by Aureobasidium pullulans CFR-77

A locally isolated fungal strain Aureobasidium pullulans CFR-77 was used fo r the production of pullulan in batch fermentation employing jaggery (a tra ditional concentrated sugar cane juice) as a carbon source. The maximum yie ld of pullulan (51.9 g l(-1)) was obtained with 5% jaggery in the fermentat ion broth in 72 h. Jaggery supported good growth of A. pullulans and the pu llulan produced was pigment free and highly viscous (160.5 cp) as compared with that of sucrose (32.0 cp). The fermentation period was reduced when ja ggery was used as a carbon source as compared with sucrose. It favoured the formation of yeast like cells along with chlamydospores. The GC analysis o f pullulan produced from jaggery and sucrose showed the presence of glucose as major sugar. From these results it can be concluded that Jaggery is a p romising carbon source for the economical production of pullulan. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.