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The pH-stat Butyric Acid Feeding Strategy Coupled with Gas-Stripping for n-Butanol Production by Clostridium beijerinckii

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Abstract

Organic acids are produced as by-product in food waste by acid fermentation process for biogas production. Particularly, butyric acid is one of the main organic acids and can be converted to n-butanol via the butyrate kinase pathway. However, bacterial toxicity of butyric acid limits its use as a major carbon source. Here, we produced n-butanol from butyric acid using Clsotrdium beijerinckii KCTC 2203, which was the most suitable strain among the six Clostridia strains tested. We produced up to 9.84 g/L of n-butanol using a mixed carbon source composed of 25 g/L of glucose and 10 g/L of butyric acid in a flask culture. The pH-stat fed-batch fermentation method was also performed to increase the production rate. To maximize the effect of pH-stat feeding, substrate feeding solutions with various butyrate/glucose (B/G) ratios were fed. As a result, 9.69 g/L of n-butanol could be produced at a B/G ratio of 0.5, and the pH-stat fed-batch feeding strategy exhibited an enhanced n-butanol production rate of 0.40 g/L/hr without substrate depletion. Finally, we integrated this method with gas stripping using the volatility of n-butanol to prevent product inhibition, resulting in the production of 41.27 g/L of n-butanol in 124 h.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea (20163010092150) and Korea Institute of Industrial Technology as “International Joint Research Project (JE180010)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intelligent Sustainable Materials R&D Group, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), Chonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do, 31056, Republic of Korea

    Doo-Geun Lee & Jeong-Jun Yoon

  2. Department of Biological Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea

    Jong-Min Jeon & Yung-Hun Yang

  3. Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Yong-Su Jin

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Correspondence to Jeong-Jun Yoon.

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Lee, DG., Jeon, JM., Yang, YH. et al. The pH-stat Butyric Acid Feeding Strategy Coupled with Gas-Stripping for n-Butanol Production by Clostridium beijerinckii. Waste Biomass Valor 11, 1077–1084 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0461-0

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