Economic Importance Of Fermentation

Project and Seminar Material for Science Laboratory Technology SLT

Abstract

Fermentation has a long history of use for preserving foods its said that great wall of China was built on brown rice and femented cabbage (kimching). Fermentation enhance the presentation of perishable agricultural crops fermentation converts sugar to access gases or alcohol it occurs in yeast and bacteria. This study was carried out to examine the the economic importance of fermentation. The findings of the study revealed that fermentation has a wider range of economic importance in the world. Also, fermentation is important in the manufacture of many value added products both industrially and domestically, including foods, some of which contains reasonable amounts of carbohydrates proteins, fats and oil, minerals and vitamins which are beneficial and essential for human and other organisms, in the synthesis of organic acids (e.g lactic acid, acetic acid citric acid etc), micro organisms (e.g bacteria, fungi, and enzymes), and other processes and products throughout the world. In the detoxification of poisonous acid in foods that could be harmful to health, thereby making fermented foods very beneficial to living organisms, in the manufacturing of bioactive product (e.g mycotoxins, gibberellins, hormones, alkaloids, antibiotics, etc), livestock feeds, fuel (e.g biofuel like ethanol), bioremediation and biodegradation of hazardous compound (e.g pesticides, caffeinated residues). Pigments, biosurfactants, xanthan, etc. The study therefore recommends that fermentation process should be more emphasized upon by manufacturers of fermented product (e.g drugs, foods, alcoholic beverages, crude refining in the synthesis of many organic acids etc) because of it importance in these processes, and that facilities used in fermentation should be improved upon by industries, governments, and individuals where necessary for much more and efficient yield of product.

Chapter One

Introduction

Fermentation is the chemical transformation o organic substances into simpler compounds by the action of enzymes, complex organic catalysts which are produced by microorganisms such as molds yeasts or bacterial. Enzymes act by hydrolysis a process of breaking down or predigesting complex organic molecules for form smaller (and in the case foods, more easily digestible) compounds and nutrients for example, the enzyme protease breaks down huge protein molecule first into polypeptides and peptides, then into numerious amono acids, whih are readily assimilated by the body DUTCH MERCHANT 1975).

In some fermentation important by-products such as alcohol or various gases are also produced the word “fermentation” is derived from the latin meaning “to boil” fermented foods often have numerous advantages over the raw materials from which they are made. As applied to soy foods, fermentation not only makes the end product more ditestible, it can also create improved flavor and texture, appearance and aroma, synthesize vitamins. WANG and HESSELTING 1979. Fermentations is a metabolic process that converts sugar to acids, gases or alcohol it occurs in yeast and bacterial, but also in oxygen – starved muscle cells, as in the case of lactic fermentation. It is also used more broadly to refer to the bulk growth of microorganisms on a growth medium, often with a good of producing a specific chemical product.

Fermentation takes place in the lack of oxygen (when the electron transport chain is unusable) and becomes the cell’s primary means of ATP (energy) production (DICKSON J. R. (1999).

1.1 Background of the Study

Since fruit ferments naturally, fermentation precedes human history. However, human began to take control of fermentation process art some points in time. There is strongest evidence that people were fermenting beverage.

In Babylon about 5000 BC, ancient Egypt about 3000BC, pre – Hispanic Mexico about 2000 BC, and Sudan about 1500 BC. There is also evidence of leavened bread in ancient Egypt about the year. 1500BC. The Chinese were probably the first to develop vegetable fermentation (Wikipedia, 2006). Fermentation has been used to make alcoholic beverage, since ancient times, people who lived along the Nile River in North east Africa brewed beer around 3000 BC. It was not until the 1800’s that scientists particularly the French scientist Louis Pasteur discover how microbes cause fermentation in beer, milk and wine (world book Encyclopedia, 1992). In the 1900’s other types of fermentation were developed, fermentation of bacterium produced ingredients for explosive during chmist Josep Louis Gay – Lussac, demonstrated that alcoholic fermentation could be expressed by the following reaction: C6HO12O6 – 2CO2 +2C2H5OH, in which one molecule of the sugar glucose is decomposed to yield two molecule of carbon dioxide, and two molecules of ethyl alcohol. In 1837, it was independently proposed by German physiologist Theodor Schwann, the Germen botanist Friedrich Kutzing, and a French physicist Charles cagniard dela tour that alcohol fermentation on require yeast cells and is a physiological function of this organism (yeast is the common name for certain types of fungus). Beginning in 1985, the French Chemist Louis Pasteur further elucidated the fermentation process, through a series of experiments which showed that all fermentation is the result of microbial activity.

Additionally, he recognized by different micro organism, and that both fermentation and microbial growth proceeds in the absence of air. This led to his definition of fermentation as “life without air” Pasteur was also able to demonstrate that the decomposition of a given amount of sugar in the absence of air leads to much less microbial growth than the decomposition of the same amount of sugar in the presence of air (Encyclopedia America,1998).

A more sophisticated attempt to interpret fermentation in chemical term made by the German scientist Moritz Traube, who in 1856 suggested that all fermentation was caused by “ferments” in the organism and that the ferments are related to proteins. This account prediction was supported by German chemist Richard Willstatter who isolated the enzymes invertase from yeast in the 1920s.

1.2 Definition of Terms

Fermentation:

Is a metabolic process in which an organism converts a carbohydrate, such as starch and sugar into an alcohol or an acid for example yeast perform fermentation to obtain energy by converting sugar into alcohol

Bioreactor:

A bioreactor is defined as any manufactured engineered devices or system that supports a biological activity.

Probioties:

This is defined as a substance of micro organism especially those with beneficial properties.

Chapter Five

5.0 Summary, Concussion and Recommendation

5.1 Summary

There are several potential health an nutritive benefits of fermentation in production of food among these are improved nutritional value of food, control of intestinal infective improved digestion of lactose, control of some type of cancer and control of serum cholesterol levels some benefits result from growth and acive of the bacteria during the manufacture of the food.

Fermentation has a long history of use for preserving foods its said that great wall of China was built on brown rice and fermented cabbage (kimching) fermentation enhance the presentation of perishable agricultural crops fermentation converts sugar to access gases or alcohol it occurs in yeast and bacteria.

5.2 Conclusion

It is therefore concluded that fermentation has a wider range of economic importance in the world. Fermentation is important in the manufacture of many value added products both industrially and domestically, including foods, some of which contains reasonable amounts of carbohydrates proteins, fats and oil, minerals and vitamins which are beneficial and essential for human and other organisms, in the synthesis of organic acids (e.g lactic acid, acetic acid citric acid etc), micro organisms (e.g bacteria, fungi, and enzymes), and other processes and products throughout the world. In the detoxification of poisonous acid in foods that could be harmful to health, thereby making fermented foods very beneficial to living organisms, in the manufacturing of bioactive product (e.g mycotoxins, gibberellins, hormones, alkaloids, antibiotics, etc), livestock feeds, fuel (e.g biofuel like ethanol), bioremediation and biodegradation of hazardous compound (e.g pesticides, caffeinated residues). Pigments, biosurfactants, xanthan, etc.

5.3 Recommendation

It is recommended that fermentation process should be more emphasized upon by manufacturers of fermented product (e.g drugs, foods, alcoholic beverages, crude refining in the synthesis of many organic acids etc) because of it importance in these processes, and that facilities used in fermentation should be improved upon by industries, governments, and individuals where necessary for much more and efficient yield of product.

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