CASSAVA WHEY TREATMENT WITH ASPERGILLUS-NIGER

Treatment of Cassava whey with Aspergillus niger was investigated. Heated cassava whey supplemented with ammonium sulphate (NH4)2SO4 and potassium di‐hydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4) called supplemented cassava whey (SUCW); heated but unsupplemented cassava whey (USCW); and cassava whey as is, unsupplemented and unheated (UHCW), were used as waste sources and growth media. Total reducing sugars, starch, total carbohydrate, specific gravity, hydrocyanic acid (HCN), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of A. niger inoculated samples and uninoculated set were monitored on a time course basis for 5 days using standard methods. Percentage reductions in the BOD and COD were 69.7 and 54.5 respectively for SUCW samples; 42.4 and 29.5 for USCW samples while values for UHCW were 9.0 and 4.5. The reductions in reducing sugars, starch, total carbohydrate, specific gravity and cyanide content in descending order were SUCW; USCW and UHCW. The heated and A. niger inoculated cassava whey samples were better purified than both the unheated but inoculated and unheated and uninoculated cassava whey samples. Copyright © 1990 Akademie‐Verlag