#amylase

In Bangladesh textile and apparel industry is in the leading position in industrial structure. It contributes 12% of the country’s GDP and also accounts for almost 78% of total exports, making it countries leading foreign exchange earner. Alpha amylase is an enzyme used in textile industry for smoothening the fabric. It is also used in many washing powder, food and paper industries. But yet we do not produce this enzyme in Bangladesh though its production and purification technique is rather simple. Each year we spend a huge amount of foreign currency to import it. In this study we scaled down the production cost of alpha amylase in a pilot project. Aspergillus niger was used in this project for alpha amylase production. A. niger was cultured in PDB (Potato Dextrose Broth) medium for seed production. Wheat bran was used as substrate for fermentation. Substrates were pre-treated with 1% NaOH for hydrolysis and washed with dH2O until neutral pH obtained. Substrates were then dried overnight using oven. MSM (Minimum Salt Medium) medium with some modifications was used for fermentation. Fermentation was carried out at 28°C at a pH of 6.2. Extraction of the enzyme was carried out by centrifugation. CMC and DNS assay showed good performance of the extracted enzyme. The calculated production cost of our enzyme is 57.92 taka per liter which is cheaper than imported ones (~450 taka per liter). Therefore, we strongly recommend that entrepreneur should be contacted to go for industrial scale alpha amylase production in Bangladesh.