Simultaneous production of lactic acid and chitin by fungal fermentation

Lactic acid is a colourless liquid which is important both in national and international markets for several industries. It is produced chemically from petroleum feed stocks and biologically from bacterial and fungal fermentation. Chitin is a second abundant biopolymer having wide use in agriculture, textile and biomedical industries and traditionally obtained from marine invertebrates which has some demerits like harsh chemical treatment and protein allergy. In order to alleviate the above problems alternative source fungi was chosen, for its production as chitin is one of the cell wall components of fungi. The present work was designed to produce the above two important products economically by a single fermentation process using fungus Rhizopus oryzae NCIM 100