Produção de ácidos húmicos por fermentação de resíduos do processamento de óleo de palma utilizando cepas de Trichoderma

Author(s)

Fernanda Lopes Motta

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Química
• Defense date: 2013-07-26

Examining board members

Maria Helena Andrade Santana; Aline Mara Barbosa Pires; Reinaldo Gaspar Bastos; Frederico Jose Vieira Passos; Gabriela Alves Macedo

• Advisor: Maria Helena Andrade Santana

Abstract

Humic acids (HA) are organic macromolecules of high structural complexity. In agriculture, their direct effects on yield and quality of many crops have been exploited since 1940 and the last decade there was a large increase in their use in medicine and biology. Although they have attracted the attention of many researchers due to their numerous applications, commercials AH are still extracted from peat and coal, non-renewable carbon sources, indicating the necessity to develop a biotechnological process for their production. Empty-fruit-bunches (EFB) are waste of oil palm processing, which are underutilized or discarded, and their accumulation brings environmental problems due to the attraction and proliferation of pests. In addition, EFB fibers are composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, whose degradation can be achieved by the action of microorganisms with high capacity of lignocellulosic material degradation, such as Trichoderma. In this context, this work aimed to produce HA from the fermentation of EFB with Trichoderma species. The results showed that oats is a suitable substrate for the production of Trichoderma spores to be used as inoculum for application in submerged fermentations (SF) of EFB for the HA production. The investigation of the HA precursor among the constituents polymers from the EFB indicate a synergistic effect of these polymers. Regarding the replacement of yeast extract by vegetable peptones in the culture medium, for both nitrogen sources the results in the production of biomass and HA were very similar. Through the optimization of the HA production by SF using experimental design, were obtained 428.4 ± 17.5 mg/L of these acids, allowing an increase of 7-fold compared to initial conditions used in this work.. A comparison of the performance of Trichoderma species in the HA production by FS indicated the superiority of the T. reesei in the production of these acids. Finally, characterization of HA production process by solid state fermentation (SSF) using Raimbault columns, where were obtained 88.1 ±2.9 mg/L of these acids, confirmed the relationship between the fungal sporulation and the HA production as well as the hypothesis of synergistic effect of the polymers. The results demonstrated the feasibility of the HA production by fermentation process, whose description in the literature is still very limited, which confers an innovative character to this work (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/15767-7 - Humic acid production by fermentation of waste from palm oil processing using Trichoderma strains
• Grantee: Fernanda Lopes Motta
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate