• Citer

Optimizing microbial processes for chitin extraction from Homarus gammarus waste

par Khaled, Elza
Promoteur Shavandi, Armin
Co-Promoteur Okoro, Oseweuba
Publication Non publié, 2024-01-25

Mémoire

• Accès en ligne
• Détails
• Contenu
• Statistiques

Résumé :

Nowadays, the global climate and the environment is in decline due to pollution generated as a direct consequence of anthropogenic activities. Indeed, management of chemical waste streams poses one of the major environmental pollution challenges that must be addressed. It is therefore crucial to explore more ecological and sustainable alternatives while ensuring economic viability. The circular economy emerges as one of the proposed solutions to remedy the increasing pollution. The goal this circular economy is to establish a sustainable economic model that promotes more efficient use of resources, minimal waste reduction, and a decrease in environmental impact. Circular economy aspires to create a closed loop where products, materials, and resources are constantly reintegrated into the production process, rather than being discarded after a single use.According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), commercial and industrial fishing generates 20 million tons of waste annually. These wastes contain a significant amount of raw materials that can be reused in other industries, such as collagen, gelatin, enzymes, antioxidant molecules like pigments, and chitin. In accordance with the circular economy the present project sought to investigate the valorisation of waste streams for chitin production. Considering that the most commonly used extraction method for chitin is the typically chemical based, involving the use of environmentally harmful and non-recyclable products, it is necessary to investigate alternative environmentally friendly strategies. To this regard the present project assessed the microbial enabled pathway for seafood waste valorisation to isolate chitin. The efficiencies of two non-pathogenic bacterial strains, Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus paracasei, were examined for chitin extraction. The two bacterial strains demonstrated comparable outcomes regarding the highest degree of demineralization (DD%) and deproteinization (DP%) of the samples. For DD%, the values were 93.68% for Lactococcus lactis and 93.86% for Lactobacillus paracasei, while for DP%, the results were 60.86% and 63.18%, respectively.The comparatively lower DP% values was due to the nature of the bacterial strain utilised since both strains are efficient lactic acid producers in the presence of the appropriate substrate rather than protease producers. However, the production of proteases is essential for an effective DP process. The isolation of chitin through microbial fermentation from crustacean waste is increasingly capturing the attention of researchers. Indeed, once optimized, this method could potentially meet all the conditions of a circular economy with a more favorable cost-effectiveness ratio than other extraction methods in the long term.