Solid Substrate Fermentations

Publisher Summary The solid-state fermentation refers to any fermentation that takes place on solid or semisolid substrate or that occurs in a nutritionally inert solid support, which provides some advantage to the microorganism with respect to access to nutrients. In a solid-state fermentation, several factors must be taken into consideration to achieve high efficiency of the overall process. Some of the general characteristics include: the solid substrate must be in a form to allow free circulation of air, usually the only other medium component required is water, and control of temperature is sometimes critical. Moisture content of the solid substrate is an important factor during microbial growth in a solid-state fermentation process. There are many advantages of the solid-state fermentation processes over the conventional stirred tank system on both laboratory and large scale. Some of the advantages for work involving fungi are—the medium is relatively simple, the conditions under which the fungus grows are more like the conditions in its natural habitat, and the desired product may be readily extracted from the vessel by addition of solvent directly.