DIAS, Emanuele Cardoso.; ANDRADE, Adrielly Silva Albuquerque de.; SILVA, Aruana Lima e Silva.; DIAS, César Henrique Araújo.; SOUSA, Adna Cristina Barbosa de.; ALMEIDA, Andréa Farias de.
Abstract:
Biosurfactants are amphipathic molecules synthesized by microorganisms
that act at the water/oil or oil/water interfaces, reducing the surface and interfacial
tensions between them and thus making some compounds more miscible. In comparison
to the synthetic surfactants that are on the market, they present several advantages,
such as biodegradability and low toxicity giving them important importance. The use of
non- conventional substrates, mainly renewable, is a strategy of biosurfactants
production due to the low cost offered, constituting one of the most important factors for
the economic feasibility on an industrial scale. In this work, the production of
biosurfactants by Bacillus subtilis using the aqueous extract of the algaroba as
alternative substrate was studied, using a 2² factorial design with triplicate in the central
point, to evaluate the influence of the concentration of this substrate and yeast extract in
this production. In view of the results, the increase of the concentration of the algaroba
aqueous extract with yeast extract supplementation favored the growth of the
microorganism and the production of biosurfactants, as evidenced by the factorial
planning. The indicative of biosurfactant production, emulsification index, was higher in
the culture using the supplementation at 0.5 and 1.0 % of yeast extract. The results
indicate the feasibility of producing biosurfactants from the aqueous extract of the
algaroba, a low cost and abundant substrate in the Northeast region.
