Fungal home-made enzymatic cocktails for apple juice clarification

Abstract

Sugarcane bagasse and cassava bagasse are lignocellulosic industrialresidues that can be used as cheap substrates for organisms? growth. Theselignocellulosic residues are also suitable for inducing enzyme secretion thatcan be applied in different bioprocesses such as juices clarification. The goalof our work was to use Aspergillus niger LBM 134 to produce xylanases,characterize them and employ these enzymes in the clarification of applejuice and pulp. A. niger LBM 134 was isolated from a natural environmentand grown on sugarcane bagasse and cassava bagasse. The highestendoxylanase and β-xylosidase activity were 144 ± 5,65 and 0,74 ± 0,05 UmL-1, respectively (p<0.05). The optimum activity and high stability atacidic pH values make these enzymes suitable for biotechnologicalapplications in juice industries. The enzymatic cocktails produced by thefungus grown on cassava bagasse reached the major clarification of applejuice (36,66 ± 4,01%) and pulp (60,15 ± 5,63%) (p<0.05). Theseclarification percentages were due to the hydrolysis of hemicellulosicmaterial carried out by the xylanases from A. niger LBM 134.