Candida lipolytica IA 1055 produced extracellular biosurfactants with emulsification activity by fermentation using babassu oil and D-glucose as carbon sources. Natural seawater diluted at 50% supplemented with urea, ammonium sulfate, and phosphate was used as economic basal medium. The best results were achieved with the YSW-B2 medium, which contained urea, ammonium sulfate, and babassu oil and with YSW-B3 medium, which contained urea, ammonium sulfate, phosphate, and babassu oil, kept under fed batch fermentation for 60 hours with 5% of babassu oil. For the two media, the maximum specific growth rates were 0.02 h-1 and 0.04 h-1; the generation times were 34.6 h-1 and 17.3 h-1, and the emulsification activities were 0.666 and 0.158 units, respectively. The molecules of these new bioemulsifiers were contituted of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids.
Bioemulsifier; Candida lipolytica; seawater; babassu oil
