Cost Effective Production of Penicillin and Biogas from Rotten Oranges by Microbial Fermentation Technique

India produces 10.8 million tonnes oranges annually, of which approximately 30 % goes as waste. Orange juice primarily contains sucrose, fructose and glucose as carbon sources which can be fermented to Penicillin and biogas. During the processing of orange juice, huge quantities of orange peel and pulp are generated which causes environmental pollution problem. This can be converted to biofuel (Biogas) by anaerobic technology (methanogenesis). Different media formulations were prepared with peptone and ammonium sulphate by performing agar well diffusion assay of the respective fermentation broths by preparing cell free extracts and the potency of each of the formulations was tested. The diameter of inhibition zone was taken as a measure of potency of each of the formulation using raw orange juice as the basic substrate. It was found that compared to conventional media using raw orange of pH 3.5, orange juice adjusted to pH 6.5, peptone added and ammonium sulphate added formulations gave an inhibition zone of diameters, 40 mm, 45 mm and 41 mm respectively. The biogas production from orange peel was found to be 68.9 % more compared to control.