The production of lactic acid by the local Iraqi strain Enterococcus faecium

Abstract EN

Lactic acid is an important carboxylic acid used in different aspects of life.

In this study a pure isolate of homofermentative lactic acid bacteria Enterococcus faecium was isolated, and characterized by morphological examinations with physiological and biochemical tests.

The present results have revealed the ability of the isolate to produce L-lactic acid in high concentration and low concentration of D-lactic acid in contrast with control.

Lactic acid has been extracted and partially purified by Amberlite IRA400 resin column, the obtained extracted parts have been tested by carboxylic acid test in addition to High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analysis which has showed that the concentration of L-lactic acid was 0.659 g / l, while D-lactic acid was 0.174 g / l in crude parts with two peaks appeared, one of area 322854 for L while no visible peak appeared for D because of small area 72214 in the figure, whereas the second peak of area 203238 may returned to the interference of D and L-lactic acid .

Purified parts have reached to a purity of 72.3 % for L-lactic and 38.2 % for D-lactic acid also with one sharp peak for L with area of 43639 and no visible peak for D-lactic due to small area of 16713.