DETOXIFICATION AND ANTI-NUTRIENT REDUCTION OF JATROPHA CURCAS SEED CAKE BY FERMENTATION USING BACILLUS SPECIES
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Information
Jatropha curcas is a species of flowering plant in the Euphorbiaceae family. It is native to the American tropics, especially Mexico and Central America (Janick and Robert, 2008). It is cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions around the world, becoming naturalized in some areas. The specific epithet, “curcas”, was first used by the Portuguese doctor Garcia de Orta more than 400 years ago with uncertain origin. Common names includes Barbados Nut, Purging Nut, Physic Nut and JCL (J. curcas Linnaeus), whereas ―Lapalapa‖ (Yoruba) ―Binidazugu‖ (Hausa) and ―Owulo idu‖ (Ibo) in Nigeria. It is a multipurpose tree because of industrial and medicinal uses. curcas is a poisonous, semi-evergreen shrub or small tree, reaching a height of 6 m (Janick and Robert, 2008). It is resistant to a high degree of aridity, allowing it to be grown in deserts. The seeds contain an average of 34.4% oil (Achten et al., 2008) with a range between 27-40% (Achten et al., 2007). Besides the economic potential of processing the oil to produce high-quality biodiesel fuel usable in a standard diesel engine, the seeds also contain the highly poisonous toxalbumin curcin.
Bacillus is a genus of Gram-positive, rod-shaped (bacillus) bacteria and a member of the phylum Firmicutes. Bacillus species can be obligate aerobes (oxygen reliant), or facultative anaerobes (having the ability to be aerobic or anaerobic). They test positive for the enzyme catalase when there has been oxygen used or present (Turnbull, 1996). Ubiquitous in nature, Bacillus includes both free-living (non-parasitic) and parasitic pathogenic species.
Under stressful environmental conditions, the bacteria can produce oval endospores and thus remain in a dormant state for very long period of time. (Madigan and Martinko, 2005). The main habitat of endospore-forming Bacillus organisms is the soil. B. subtilis strains secrete enzymes, such as amylase, protease, pullulanase, chitinase, xylanase, lipase, and esterase are produced commercially and their production represents about 60% of the commercially produced industrial enzymes (Morikawa, 2006).
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DETOXIFICATION AND ANTI-NUTRIENT REDUCTION OF JATROPHA CURCAS SEED CAKE BY FERMENTATION USING BACILLUS SPECIES
