Acetone butanol ethanol (ABE) production from concentrated substrate: reduction in substrate inhibition by fed-batch technique and product inhibition by gas stripping

Acetone butanol ethanol (ABE) was produced in an integrated fed-batch fermentation-gas stripping product-recovery system using Clostridium beijerinckii BA101, with H2 and CO2 as the carrier gases. This technique was applied in order to eliminate the substrate and product inhibition that normally restricts ABE production and sugar utilization to less than 20 g l−1 and 60 g l−1, respectively. In the integrated fed-batch fermentation and product recovery system, solvent productivities were improved to 400% of the control batch fermentation productivities. In a control batch reactor, the culture used 45.4 g glucose l−1 and produced 17.6 g total solvents l−1 (yield 0.39 g g−1, productivity 0.29 g l−1 h−1). Using the integrated fermentation-gas stripping product-recovery system with CO2 and H2 as carrier gases, we carried out fed-batch fermentation experiments and measured various characteristics of the fermentation, including ABE production, selectivity, yield and productivity. The fed-batch reactor was operated for 201 h. At the end of the fermentation, an unusually high concentration of total acids (8.5 g l−1) was observed. A total of 500 g glucose was used to produce 232.8 g solvents (77.7 g acetone, 151.7 g butanol, 3.4 g ethanol) in 1 l culture broth. The average solvent yield and productivity were 0.47 g g−1 and 1.16 g l−1 h−1, respectively.