Cassava flour wastewater as a substrate for biosurfactant production.

Five cassava flour wastewater (manipueira) preparations were tested as culture media for biosurfactant production by a wild-type Bacillus sp. isolate. No-solids (F), no-solids diluted (F/2), natural (I), natural diluted (I/2), and decanted (IPS) were the tested manipueira media. The microorganism was able to grow and to produce biosurfactant on all manipueira preparations. The media whose solids were removed (F and F/2) showed better results than preparations with the presence of solids (I, I/2, and IPS). No-solids medium (F) showed a surface tension of 26,59 mN/m and reciprocal of critical micelle concentration of over 100 and was selected as a potential substrate for biosurfactant production.