Abstract
In the process of producing chitosan from crustacean shell, the use of excessive acid and alkli is causing the problems of environmental pollution and of production cost. In this study, one way to solve these problems is to cultivate fungi, then, to extract chitosan from the cell wall. By means of flask incubation and batch cultivation, the optimum cultivation conditions for mass production of continuous cultivation was found. Four strains used for the production of fungal chitosan were Gongronella butleri IF08080, Absidia coerulea IF05301, Rhizopus delemar IF04775, Mucor tuberculisporus IF09256. In flask incubation to select strain of producing much chitosan by means of experiment of the effect of initial pH, Absidia coerulea IFO 5301 had highest yield in FCs, 258.1 $\pm$ 47.3 mg/200 $m\ell$l at pH 6.5. In flask incubation under the optimum cultivation condition, temperature 27$^{\circ}C$, culture time 6days, glucose 2%, peptone 1%, (NH$_4$)$_2$ SO$_4$ 0.5%, $K_2$HPO$_4$ 0.1 %, Nacl 0.1 %, MgSO$_4$ㆍ7$H_2O$ 0.05%, CaCl$_2$ㆍ2$H_2O$ 0.01 %, the yield of DCW brought the highest yields. In batch bioreactor, the optimum cultivation condition was that cell suspended solution was 70 $m\ell$, aeration rate 0.5 l/min, agitation rate 800 rpm, culture time 36 hr. In continuous bioreactor, the optimum substrate flow rate was 4 ι/day.