Studies on Production of Citric Acid by Aspergillus niger in Solid State Fermentation of Peat Mass

A study was made to apply the solid state fermentation for the production of citric acid using peat mass as a solid substrate supplemented with sucrose, ammonium nitrate and copper. The effect of different concentration of sucrose, ammonium nitrate and copper on the production of citric acid was studied. The sucrose and ammonium nitrate showed high degree of correlation where as copper showed low degree of correlation but did not affect much on production. The production process and concentration of nutrients are to be found interdependent. The maximum yield was obtained at 100g/kg PM, 20 g/kg PM and 45 ppm/kg PM for sucrose, ammonium nitrate and copper respectively.