Sustainable Production of Lactic Acid Using a Perennial Ryegrass as Feedstock—A Comparative Study of Fermentation at the Bench- and Reactor-Scale, and Ensiling

Ludovica Varriale, Jan-Niklas Hengsbach, Tianyi Guo, Katrin Kuka, Nils Tippkötter and Roland Ulber ()
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Ludovica Varriale: Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Division of Bioprocess Engineering, Rhein-Palatinate Technical University Kaiserslautern-Landau, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
Jan-Niklas Hengsbach: Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Division of Bioprocess Engineering, Rhein-Palatinate Technical University Kaiserslautern-Landau, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
Tianyi Guo: Department of Bioprocess Engineering and Downstream Processing, University of Applied Sciences Aachen, 52428 Jülich, Germany
Katrin Kuka: Julius Kühn-Institute (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
Nils Tippkötter: Department of Bioprocess Engineering and Downstream Processing, University of Applied Sciences Aachen, 52428 Jülich, Germany
Roland Ulber: Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Division of Bioprocess Engineering, Rhein-Palatinate Technical University Kaiserslautern-Landau, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 18, 1-19

Abstract: Perennial ryegrass ( Lolium perenne ) is an underutilized lignocellulosic biomass that has several benefits such as high availability, renewability, and biomass yield. The grass press-juice obtained from the mechanical pretreatment can be used for the bio-based production of chemicals. Lactic acid is a platform chemical that has attracted consideration due to its broad area of applications. For this reason, the more sustainable production of lactic acid is expected to increase. In this work, lactic acid was produced using complex medium at the bench- and reactor scale, and the results were compared to those obtained using an optimized press-juice medium. Bench-scale fermentations were carried out in a pH-control system and lactic acid production reached approximately 21.84 ± 0.95 g/L in complex medium, and 26.61 ± 1.2 g/L in press-juice medium. In the bioreactor, the production yield was 0.91 ± 0.07 g/g, corresponding to a 1.4-fold increase with respect to the complex medium with fructose. As a comparison to the traditional ensiling process, the ensiling of whole grass fractions of different varieties harvested in summer and autumn was performed. Ensiling showed variations in lactic acid yields, with a yield up to 15.2% dry mass for the late-harvested samples, surpassing typical silage yields of 6–10% dry mass.

Keywords: bio-based economy; renewable resources; perennial ryegrass; fermentation; ensiling; lactic acid; Lactobacillus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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