Potensi pemanfaatan sampah organik kota sebagai bahan pembuatan asam laktat menggunakan Lactobacillus casei

Vegetables wastes from traditional markets can be fermented to lactic acid. There are some industries that utilize lactic acid such as foods, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, feedstock and plastics industries. This research was aimed to investigate the effect of temperature and pH on lactic acid produced from fermentation of vegetable wastes juice using Lactobacillus casei, also to find its optimum condition. The fresh vegetables wastes were collected from traditional market and processed to be a media for fermentation. Then the mixtures were incubated in anaerobic condition at temperatures of 30, 40 and 50oC. The results showed that increasing temperature from 30 to 40oC would increase the production of lactic acid, but the higher temperature (50oC) cause the lactic acid is decrease. Temperature give the higher effect on lactic acid production than pH. The optimum condition for fermentation using L. casei was temperature of 40oC and pH 5 for 192 hours of fermentation. Using economic evaluation, vegetables wastes can be used as a source material for lactic acid production