Evaluation of food wastes as a medium to produce chitin-glucan nanofiber from Aspergillus niger

This study investigated the potential of using food waste as a growth media for chitin-glucan nanofiber production by Aspergillus niger. For that purpose, a local hotel food waste was used to prepare four different media based on the protein and polysaccharide content of the waste. Optimal fermentation conditions, including medium composition, inoculum size of A. niger, incubation time, and shaking speed in biomass production, were determined using the 4 × 4 Taguchi experimental design. The characterization of produced chitin-glucan nanofiber was determined using FESEM, FT-IR, and NMR. The experimental design results showed that the highest amount of chitin-glucan nanofiber was found as 1.9 g/l at pH 5 and 30 °C with 58.82% yield. Optimal conditions for the highest yield were observed when the media containing 20% fruit-vegetable-rich waste, 30% protein-rich waste, and 50% polysaccharide-rich waste was used with an 8 mm inoculation size of A. niger at 6 d incubation time with 100 RPM shaking speed. Characterization studies have shown that chitin-glucan nanofibers obtained from wastes are equivalent to their commercial counterparts. The use of food wastes to produce chitin-glucan nanofiber from A. niger can save costs and significantly reduce environmental pollution.