Potential use of oil palm sap on lactic acid production and product adsorption on Dowex™ 66 resin as adsorbent

Lactic acid is a product that finds several applications in food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. The main objective of this work is to evaluate potential use of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) sap as a substrate by Lactobacillus casei. The effects of pH control and nutrient supplement of oil palm sap on fermentation performance were investigated. In this report, when oil palm sap was used as a carbon source for L. casei, pH control did not significantly affect lactic acid production. The addition of de Man, Rogosa, and Sharpe medium improved the biomass and the product yield for which the lactic acid production in static flask at 37 °C and pH 5.5 using 20 g L−1 of total sugar was improved to 0.55 g L−1 h−1. Oil palm sap could serve as a good potential source of raw materials for efficient production of lactic acid by L. casei. When lactic acid was separated from the fermentation broth with Dowex™ 66 resin by water as eluant, the desorption yield was 75.16%. © 2012 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.