Fungal synthesis of kojic acid has gained more
interest in these days as an alternative way to
chemical synthetic. The aspect of the microbial
fermentation process is to develop a suitable culture
medium to obtain the maximum amount of kojic
acid using statistical methods. In this study; different
selected three isolates of Aspergillus flavus (No 1, 2
and 3) were screened for their ability to produced
kojic acid and the isolate No 3 was the highest kojic
acid producer one. The capability of A. flavus No 3
to produce kojic acid was improved using Plackett-
Burman design. From ten different agro-industrial
wastes cane molasses recorded the highest kojic acid
productivity with 2.24 g/l-1 day-1 and was the most
effective parameter plays a crucial role in Plackett-
Burman design. Maximum kojic acid production
(24.65 g/l) by A. flavus (No. 3) obtained under the
fermentation conditions: incubation temperature at
25oC, incubation time 9 days, pH 3, inoculum size
0.5%, shaking rate at 150 rpm and medium
constituents: Cane molasses 60 g/l, yeast extract
7 g/l, KH2PO4 2 g/l, ZnSO4·7H2O 100 μg/l and
MgSO4·7H2O 1 g/l with regression analysis (R2)
99.45% and 2.33-fold increase in comparison to the
production of the original level (10.6 g/l).
of Biological Research