Butyric Acid Fermentation of Sodium Hydroxide Pretreated Rice Straw with Undefined Mixed Culture

This study describes an alternative mixed culture fermentation technology to anaerobically convert lignocellulosic biomass into butyric acid, a valuable product with wide application, without supplementary cellulolytic enzymes. Rice straw was soaked in 1% NaOH solution to increase digestibility. Among the tested pretreatment conditions, soaking rice straw at 50 degrees C for 72 h removed similar to 66% of the lignin, but retained similar to 84% of the cellulose and similar to 71% of the hemicellulose. By using an undefined cellulose-degrading butyrate-producing microbial community as butyric acid producer in batch fermentation, about 6 g/l of butyric acid was produced from the pretreated rice straw, which accounted for similar to 76% of the total volatile fatty acids. In the repeated-batch operation, the butyric acid production declined batch by batch, which was most possibly caused by the shift of microbial community structure monitored by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. In this study, batch operation was observed to be more suitable for butyric acid production.