Use of microfungi for single cell protein production during food processing wastewater treatment

摘要: A selected microfungal species was cultivated on corn processing wastewater in batch culture and in a continuous system with microscreen separation. Results have demonstrated the feasibility of growing the selected fungal species on this wastewater. The COD removal efficiency was about 75% in shake flask tests and increased to 84% in continuous flow systems. The fungal biomass yields varied from 0.290 to 0.420 mg biomass/mg COD utilized and compared well with the yields obtained with the same fungal species in Australia growing on wheat processing wastewater (Jin et al., 1999). The continuous experimental results show that the microscreen system can be used to selectively cultivate microfungi and effectively control bacterial growth, efficiently treating organic-rich food processing wastewaters and concomitantly producing protein-rich biomass, which can also serve as a source of fungal byproducts.