Production of Xanthan from Agro-Industrial Waste

Abstract

Xanthan are water soluble Exopolysaccharides produced by Xanthomonas species. These polysaccharides have much common application and normally produced in submerged fermentation by using different carbon sources. Solid state fermentation offers numerous advantages for the production of bulk chemicals and enzymes. An attempt to synthesize Xanthan from agro-industrial wastes by solid state fermentation yielded a dry weight of 2.9 gm/50gm of substrate when fermented by Xanthomonas citri, 2.87 gm by standard strain Xanthomonas campestries (MTCC) 2286 and 1.5 gm by Xanthomonas oryzae. Potato peel was employed as carbon substrate in which X. Citri produced high amount of Xanthan. The recovered xanthan was checked for its purity and composition by chemical analysis and structural analysis by FT-IR. TLC and HPLC confirmed the sugars in isolated Xanthan while FTIR ensured the presence of uronic acids. This work emphasizes the possibility of using agricultural wastes as lower cost alternative substrates for Xanthan production which is a widely used food additive.