Kinetic Studies on Microbial Production of Tannase Using Redgram Husk

Tannase (tannin acyl hydrolase, E.C.3.1.1.20) is an important hydrolysable enzyme with innumerable applications and industrial potential. In the present study, a kinetic model has been developed for the batch fermentation used for the production of tannase by A.flavus MTCC 3783. Maximum tannase activity of 143.30 U/ml was obtained at 96 hours under optimum operating conditions at 35oC, an initial pH of 5.5 and with an inducer tannic acid concentration of 3% (w/v) for a fermentation period of 120 hours. The biomass concentration reaches a maximum of 6.62 g/l at 96 hours and further there was no increase in biomass concentration till the end of the fermentation. Various unstructured kinetic models were analyzed to simulate the experimental values of microbial growth, tannase activity and substrate concentration. The Logistic model for microbial growth , Luedeking Piret model for production of tannase and Substrate utilization kinetic model for utilization of substrate were capable of predicting the fermentation profile with high coefficient of determination (R) values of 0.980, 0.942 and 0.983 respectively. The results indicated that the unstructured models were able to describe the fermentation kinetics more effectively. Keywords—Aspergillus flavus, Batch fermentation, Kinetic model, Tannase, Unstructured models.