Abstract
In the process of chitin extraction, shrimp shell powder was treated by Lactobacillus plantarum culture. The efficiency of
microbial demineralization (DM) under aerobic and anaerobic conditions was investigated. The shrimp shell powder was
incubated at 30 °C for 6 days with L. plantarum. In order to prepare microbial culture, inoculums size was 5% for culture
inoculation. Date syrup with total reduce sugar concentration of 30 g.L-1 was used. The value of pH in anaerobic condition was
lower than in aerobic fermentation in demineralization process. From the obtained results it was observed that low pH which
leads to high DM of shrimp shell. The percentages of DM under aerobic and anaerobic conditions were 61 and 80%, respectively.
To obtain the substrate consumption and microbial growth parameters, several kinetic models such as Monod, Eadie-Hofstee and
Logistic equations were evaluated. Monod and Logistic models were quite well fitted with experimental data obtained in aerobic
and anaerobic processes. The obtained R2 value was greater than 95%.