ISOLATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF CELLULASE PRODUCTION BY ASPERGILLUS PENICILLIOIDES 12 ASZ USING EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNAman A. Sorour, Safaa M. Ali, Moustafa Y. El-Naggar and Zakia A. OlamaAbstract A novel fungal cellulase producer namely: Aspergillus penicillioides 12ASZ (accession no.: MK713549) was isolated from Egyptian soil. The detected cellulase was reported as acidic which was highly active between 30-55oC. In a trial to test the environmental factors that lead to maximum cellulase production by the tested fungus, PlackettâBurman and BOX-Benken were tested, fifteen variables in PlackettâBurman were tested. Data revealed that soluble starch, MnSO4 and CaCl2 were the most significant variables that leads to 6 fold increase in cellulase production by Aspergillus penicillioides 12ASZ (MK713549) using PlackettâBurman design. Subsequently, BOX-Benken design was implemented to obtain the best process conditions among the selected variables vital for cultivating cellulase yield. Box-Behnken design level was pragmatic to generate a polynomial quadratic linking between the three variables and cellulase activity. The ideal preparations of the officer medium elements for cellulase production were estimated by algorithm of EXCEL-solver of nonlinear optimization. The expected optimum cellulase activity was 195.57 U/mL/min, which was increased by 22.74 times of the activity us |