PRODUCTION OF XANTHAN GUM FROM XANTHOMONAS CAMPESTRIS NRRL B-1459 BY FERMENTATION OF DATE JUICE PALM BY-PRODUCTS (PHOENIX DACTYLIFERA L.)

In this work, we studied the possibility to use date juice for xanthan gum production by Xanthomonas campestris NRRL B-1459. The results showed that this strain has a high ability to metabolize date juice. The data on optimization of physiological conditions of fermentation, pH, temperature, inoculum's size, glucose and nitrogen concentration showed that the maximum xanthan yield of 24.5 g/L was obtained from 60 g/L glucose, 3 g/L ammonium sulphate when batch fermentation was carried with 5% inoculum's size at pH 7, 28C, 48 h, on a rotary orbital shaker at 180 rpm. The polysaccharide purified by high performance liquid chromatography and analyzed by thin layer chromatography contained glucose, glucoronic acid and mannose. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Agri-food by-products rich in sugars may be used to produce high added value food ingredients such as xanthan gum. No work has studied the production of this polysaccharide from date. This study is focused on given value addition to date by-product (hard texture) by production of xanthan gum. The effect of several parameters (pH, temperature, inoculum's size, agitation speed, nitrogen source and carbon concentration) on production yield was investigated.