Screening and identification of a strain of Aureobasidium pullulans and its application in potato starch industrial waste

Pullulan and melanin have become important secondary metabolites that are now widely studied. In this study, a strain of Aureobasidium pullulans HIT-LCY3^T was used to ferment potato starch industrial waste to produce pullulan and melanin. After optimization, the culture conditions for the fermentation medium were obtained: inoculum age of 48 h, initial pH of 6.0, inoculation quantity of 1.5%, temperature of 26 °C, fermentation time of 5 d and speed of 160 rpm. Under these conditions, the yield of pullulan was 23.47 g/L with a molecular weight (MW) of 1.21 × 10⁶ Da and the yield of melanin was 18.98 g/L. In addition, the adaptive evolution could significantly increase the yield of pullulan and melanin and the air-floating fermenters was more conductive to product accumulation. Through the 5 L small-scale test and 1000 L pilot test, the yield of pullulan reached 16.52 g/L with molecular weight of 0.92 × 10⁶ Da and the yield of melanin was 12.08 g/L at the trial production of 30,000 L. This work could provide strong support for industrial production and new guidance for waste utilization and environmental protection.