Low cost process for cellulase production: the effect of olive pomace as inducer.

As fossil sources are near to the depletion, the interest for renewable, such as bioethanol, is enjoying increasing attention. Nevertheless, the bioethanol production feasibility is strongly affected by the deployment of high-costly enzymes such as amylases or cellulases, needed to convert vegetal biomass to sugars that will undergo to the fermentation process. At present, cellulase is produced with specific fungal microorganisms secreting it, one the most important being Trichoderma sp, in highly aerobic and aseptic fermentations. One of the most important key points of these fermentations is the choice of the inducer – a substance capable to stimulate the eznyme production - that has to be comprised in the growth medium. In this work, the results obtained using olive pomace - a waste material - as inducer in a fermentation process carried out using Trichoderma viride are showed: cellulase production yields close to those achieved with traditional inducers were obtained.