Summary
To increase the solvent productivity of the acetone-butanol fermentation, a continuous culture of Clostridium acetobytylicum with cell recycling was used. At a dry cell mass concentration of 8 g l-1 and a dilution rate of D=0.64 h-1, a solvent productivity of 5.4 g l-1 h-1 was attained. To prevent degeneration of the culture, which occurs with high concentrations of solvents (acetone, butanol and ethanol), different reactor cascades were used. A two-stage cascade with cell recycling and turbidostatic cell concentration control turned out to be the best solution, the first stage of which was kept at relatively low cell and product concentrations. A solvent productivity of 3 and 2.3 g l-1 h-1, respectively, was achieved at solvent concentrations of 12 and 15 g l-1.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- D :
-
Dilution rate (h-1)
- r p :
-
solvent productivity (g l-1 h-1)
- s :
-
residual glucose concentration (g l-1)
- V R :
-
reactor volume (l)
- V O :
-
overall volume (l)
- x :
-
(dry) cell mass concentration (g l-1)
- Y P/S :
-
solvent yield (g g-1)
References
Bahl H, Andersch W, Gottschalk G (1982) Continuous production of acetone and butanol by Clostridium acetobutylicum in a two-stage phosphate-limited chemostat. Eur J Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 15:201–205
Leung JCY, Wang DIC (1981) Production of acetone butanol in continuous fermentation. 2nd World Congress of Chemical Engineering, Montreal, October 4–9
Monot F, Engasser JM (1983a) Continuous production of acetone-butanol on an optimized synthetic medium. Eur J Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 18:246–248
Monot F, Engasser JM (1983b) Production of acetone and butanol by batch and continuous culture of Clostridium acetobutylicum under nitrogen limitation. Biotechnol Lett 5:213–218
Schmidt W, Kuhlmann W, Schügerl K (1985) Automated determination of glucose in fermentation broths with p-hydroxybenzoic-acid hydrazide (p-HBAH). Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 21:78–84
Yerushalmi L, Volesky B Leung WK, Neufeldt KJ (1983) Variation of solvent yield in acetone-butanol fermentation. Eur J Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 18:279–286
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Afschar, A.S., Biebl, H., Schaller, K. et al. Production of acetone and butanol by Clostridium acetobutylicum in continuous culture with cell recycle. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 22, 394–398 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00252779
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00252779