Abstract
It is found that the fat extracted from mango seed kernel is edible and is rich in stearic and oleic acid, which could be used as surfactant hydrophobe for the synthesis of bio-surfactants. This article describes downstream processing of mango kernel fat (MKF) to isolate its fatty acid fractions. Further the unsaturated fatty acid fraction (mango kernel olein) has been exploited as a surfactant hydrophobe for the fermentative production of sophorolipids by solid state fermentation as well as submerged fermentation at a shake flask scale using starmerella bombicola NRRL-Y 17069. Yield of 17.48 grams of sophorolipids per 100 g of substrate (17.48% conversion) was obtained by solid state fermentation, while the submerged fermentation resulted in a yield of 5.8 grams of sophorolipids per 100 grams of substrate (5.8% conversion). Thus here we have successfully carried out simple downstream process to obtain stearin fraction and olein fraction from mango kernel fat and its olein fraction was successfully used as a novel lipid source for the production of sophorolipids. Further, to the best of our knowledge we have obtained highest yield of a microbial bio-surfactant by solid state fermentation technology. This is also the first report on the possibility of production of sophorolipids by solid state fermentation technique.
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