Effect of dilute sulphuric acid pretreatment on cellulase production by Bacillus subtilis (K-18) through response surface methodology

The present study investigated the optimization of dilute sulphuric acid pretreatment to maximize cellulase production from banana peduncle waste through box-behnken design of response surface methodology. cellulase production was carried out in 250ml capacity erlenmeyer flask using pretreated banana peduncle as substrate in submerged fermentation by bacillus subtilis k-18 incubated at 50°c for fermentation period of 24 h. results indicated that chemical pretreatment using sulphuric acid favored cellulase production as compared to thermochemical pretreatment using sulphuric acid followed by autoclaving at 121°c for 15 min and 15 psi. maximum filter paper activity of 0.958 iu/ml/min was observed at optimal pretreatment conditions of 0.4 n h2so4 concentration,15% substrate concentration and residence time of 6h with chemical pretreatment. for thermochemical pretreatment optimal fpase activity of 0.63 iu/ml/min was recorded at 0.4 n h2so4 concentration,10% substrate concentration and residence time of 4 h. the proposed regression model for both types of pretreatments was found significant as revealed by f-value,p-value and coefficient of determination. these results indicated that banana peduncle can be successfully utilized as solid substrate in submerged fermentation for cellulase enzyme production. © pakistan academy of sciences.