Use of Wheat Straw for Extracellular Cellulase Production from Aspergillus niger F₈ Isolated from Compost

An extracellular cellulase producing celluloytic Aspergillus niger F₈ was isolated from compost sample expressing maximum cellulase activity of 6.75 IU/ml on basal salt medium, pH 4.5, temperature 30°C and inoculum size 10% with 1% substrate concentration on 7 days of incubation. 358.70% increase in enzyme activity was observed after optimisation of parameters under submerged fermentation. Further, enhancement in enzyme activity was done under solid-state fermentation using alkali+steam pretreated wheat straw. A. niger F₈ exhibited enzyme activity of 71.22 U/g with pretreated (alkali+steam) biomass. It is a cost-effective enzyme production approach of utilising cheap and abundant lignocellulosic agricultural waste as carbon source.