Vol. 12, Issue 7 (2023)

The cell wall of fungus mainly consists of chitin, chitosan, β-glucan and mannan. In recent years, fungi have been regarded as an alternative source of chitosan for many industrial applications due to significant advantages. The main objective of this study was to optimize cultivation parameters of Aspergillus flavus strain AF2118 for maximum yield of chitosan. The highest chitosan production was found to be 213 g/100ml after 96 hours of incubation. From the results, it appears that an initial pH of 5.0 and temperature of 35˚C lead to high-yield fungal chitosan (0.265±0.013 g/100ml). Among all the carbon sources, glucose plays an important role in the productivity of chitosan with the highest cell biomass (1.233±0.085 g/100ml) as well as fungal chitosan production (0.309±0.027 g/100ml). Moreover, our study revealed that yeast extracts as an organic nitrogen source showed a significant effect on the yield of fungal chitosan (0.332±0.035g/100ml). The above results proved the relevance of optimization of cultural conditions for maximum production of chitosan from fungal biomass.