Journal of Biotechnology 231 (2016) 232–238 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Biotechnology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbiotec Characterization of a polyhydroxyalkanoate obtained from pineapple peel waste using Ralsthonia eutropha Oscar Vega-Castro a,∗ , Jose Contreras-Calderon a , Emilson León a , Almir Segura b , Mario Arias c , León Pérez d , Paulo J.A. Sobral e a BIOALI Research Group, Department of Food, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Food, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Calle 67 No. 53-108, Colombia b Grupo Investigación Catalizadores y Absorbentes, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Calle 67 No. 53-108, Colombia c Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Sede Medellín, Medellín, Calle 59 a No.63-20, Colombia d Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Sede Bogotá, Bogotá, Carrera 45 No.26-85, Colombia e Universidad de São Paulo (USP), Av. Duque de Caxias Norte, 225, 13635-900, Pirassununga, SP, Brazil, Brazil a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 25 April 2016 Received in revised form 7 June 2016 Accepted 13 June 2016 Available online 15 June 2016 Keywords: Biopolymers PHB Pineapple Fermentation FTIR a b s t r a c t Agro-industrial waste can be the production source of biopolymers such as polyhydroxyalkanoates. The aim of this study was to produce and characterize Polyhydroxyalkanoates produced from pineapple peel waste fermentation processes. The methodology includes different pineapple peel waste fermen- tation conditions. The produced biopolymer was characterized using FTIR, GC–MS and NMR. The best fermentation condition for biopolymer production was obtained using pH 9, Carbon/Nitrogen 11, car- bon/phosphorus 6 and fermentation time of 60 h. FTIR analyzes showed PHB group characteristics, such as OH, CH and C O. In addition, GC–MS showed two monomers with 4 and 8 carbons, referred to PHB and PHBHV. H 1 NMR analysis showed 0.88–0.97 and 5.27 ppm signals, corresponding to CH 3 and CH, respec- tively. In conclusion, polyhydroxyalkanoate production from pineapple peels waste is an alternative for the treatment of waste generated in Colombia’s fruit industry. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Pineapple (Ananas comosus) cultivation in Colombia currently has great importance in the country´ ıs economy, which produces 621,000 tons/year, occupying an area of approximately 14,000 ha (Agronet, 2015). However, pineapple production increase gener- ates agro-industrial wastes from the food industry or from products that were lost in postharvest of around 315,000 tons/year. Then, it becomes important to find applications for these pineapple peel residues. Pineapple agro-industrial waste has been studied regarding glu- cose syrup production (Zain and Seker, 2014) and preparation of high surface area activated carbon with pineapple peel (Hameed and Foo, 2012). Regarding food industry applications, Hajar et al. (2012) determined pineapple peel physicochemical properties, and Donkor et al. (2016) and Lambri et al. (2015) used it to develop ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: oscar.vega@udea.edu.co (O. Vega-Castro), jose.contrerasc@udea.edu.co (J. Contreras-Calderon), leonflorian1989@gmail.com (E. León), almirsegura@gmail.com (A. Segura), marioari@unal.edu.co (M. Arias), ldperezp@unal.edu.co (L. Pérez), pjsobral@usp.br (P.J.A. Sobral). yogurt and vinegar. Another alternative to the pineapple peel agro-industrial waste is its use in biopolymer production, such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), by fermentation. These biopolymers have been produced in laboratory scale through fermentation processes from several waste types, as fol- lows: dairy residues (Bosco and Chiampo, 2010); a co-product stream from soy-based biodiesel production that consists of glyc- erol, fatty acid soaps and residual fatty acid methyl esters (Ashby et al., 2004); glycerol (Fonseca et al., 2009), and soy cake (Oliveira et al., 2007). Other examples are found in the review on poly- hydroxyalkanoate (PHAs) production from waste materials and byproducts by submerged and solid-state fermentation, by Castilho et al. (2009). Other raw materials used for PHAs production that are reported in the literature are fructose (Barbosa et al. 2005) and vegetables oils (Thakor et al., 2005). PHAs are biopolymers synthesized by many gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria that are stored in intracellular inclusion bodies as an energy reserve, in response to carbon source excess and under nutrient-limited conditions (Mishra et al., 2010). A number of studies reported the production of different PHAs using various strains, such as Cupriavidus necator (the same as Ralstonia eutropha), Brevundimonas vesicularis LMG P-23615b and Comamonas testos- terone (Thakor et al., 2005). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiotec.2016.06.018 0168-1656/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.