Biopolymers are polymers produced by certain microorganisms, that are readily degradable in the environment. These biodegradable plastics have the potential to be used as substitutes for conventional petroleum based plastic provided that the production costs can be greatly reduced. The high cost of biopolymer production is due to the cost of substrate which mainly is glucose. / The enzymatic hydrolysis of potato processing wastes was to produce glucose as a least expensive feedstock substrate for the production of biopolymers of polyhydroxybutirate (PHB) from the bacterium Alcaligenes eutrophus was studied. The enzymatic hydrolysis experiments were carried out using $ alpha$-amylase liquefaction enzymes from Aspergillus oryzae and barley-malt, and amyloglucosidase saccharification enzyme from Rhizopus. / The results indicated that the production of glucose from potato starch waste to be used as a substrate to produce biopolymers was both technically and economically feasible. A 10 to 90 ratio of barley-malt to potato starch waste gave the highest conversion of starch to glucose of 194.30 gL$ sp{-1}$ (96.56%), and the lowest liquefaction enzyme cost ($0.054) to hydrolyze one kg of potato starch waste. { it A. eutrophus /} produced PHB of 5.0 gL$ sp-1$ (76.9 % of biomass) using the glucose substrate generated from the potato starch waste.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.55528 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Rusendi, Dadi |
| Contributors | Sheppard, John (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Agricultural Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001443052, proquestno: AAIMM00056, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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