Continuous Acetone-Buthanol-Ethanol Production with High Productivity Using a Metabolically Engineered Strain of Clostridium acetobutylicum

Abstract

Anaerobic fermentation processes are generally limited by low cell concentrations that eventually results in low volumetric productivity. The aim of the present study was to establish a continuous fermentation process for a metabolically engineered C. acetobutylicum strain which can result in high butanol and ABE productivities.The maximum obtained ABE and butanol productivities were 15.7 and 7.9 g l1 h1 respectively. The merit of this work is that this is the first report on continuous fermentation with cell recycling using a metabolically engineered C. acetobutylicum. The butanol and ABE productivities obtained during present study is the highest reported productivities obtained during continuous acetonebutanolethanol fermentation by any of the reported strains.