Ethanol and Acetic Acid Production from Carbon Monoxide in a Clostridium Strain in Batch and Continuous Gas-Fed Bioreactors

Haris Nalakath Abubackar, María C. Veiga and Christian Kennes
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Haris Nalakath Abubackar: Chemical Engineering Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, University of La Coruña, Rúa da Fraga 10, 15008 La Coruña, Spain
María C. Veiga: Chemical Engineering Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, University of La Coruña, Rúa da Fraga 10, 15008 La Coruña, Spain
Christian Kennes: Chemical Engineering Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, University of La Coruña, Rúa da Fraga 10, 15008 La Coruña, Spain

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: The effect of different sources of nitrogen as well as their concentrations on the bioconversion of carbon monoxide to metabolic products such as acetic acid and ethanol by Clostridium autoethanogenum was studied. In a first set of assays, under batch conditions, either NH 4 Cl , trypticase soy broth or yeast extract (YE) were used as sources of nitrogen. The use of YE was found statistically significant ( p < 0.05) on the product spectrum in such batch assays. In another set of experiments, three bioreactors were operated with continuous CO supply, in order to estimate the effect of running conditions on products and biomass formation. The bioreactors were operated under different conditions, i.e. , EXP1 (pH = 5.75, YE 1g/L), EXP2 (pH = 4.75, YE 1 g/L) and EXP3 (pH = 5.75, YE 0.2 g/L). When compared to EXP2 and EXP3, it was found that EXP1 yielded the maximum biomass accumulation (302.4 mg/L) and products concentrations, i.e. , acetic acid (2147.1 mg/L) and ethanol (352.6 mg/L). This can be attributed to the fact that the higher pH and higher YE concentration used in EXP1 stimulated cell growth and did, consequently, also enhance metabolite production. However, when ethanol is the desired end-product, as a biofuel, the lower pH used in EXP2 was more favourable for solventogenesis and yielded the highest ethanol/acetic acid ratio, reaching a value of 0.54.

Keywords: acetic acid; bioethanol; carbon monoxide; Clostridium autoethanogenum; syngas; waste gas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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