ABSTRACT
The date palm tree (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is grown extensively in arid and semiarid regions of the world like North Africa, Arabian Peninsula, and South Asian countries. Botanically, date fruits are one-seeded berries consisting of ¨eshy mesocarp covered by a thin epicarp and a hard endocarp surrounding the seed (Munier, 1973). The date palm is cultivated over 1.18 million ha all over the world (FAOSTAT, 2008). The world production of dates has increased considerably during the last three decades and estimated more than 6.7 million tonnes. Dates have always played a signiŸcant role in the economy of the cultivated countries. Date fruits are rich in carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins (Morton, 1987). Fresh sap from date contains sugars as the major components (92%–95% dry matter basis), 2.7%–5% of proteins, 0.1%–0.5% fats (Hasnaoui et al., 2010), and 2.3%–2.6% of minerals (Ben Thabet et al., 2010). Since date fruit is a good source of sugar, it could be a cheaper raw material for microbial fermentation processes. Due to the high sugar content, it could also be used to produce microbial biomass. Another economical signiŸcance is that date does not require any special treatment like acid hydrolysis, steam explosion, or any other enzymatic pretreatment to
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