Co-utilization of glycerol and lignocellulosic hydrolysates enhances anaerobic 1,3-propanediol production by Clostridium diolis

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 19044
• Main Authors: Xin, Bo, Wang, Yu, Tao, Fei, Li, Lixiang, Ma, Cuiqing, Xu, Ping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11-01-2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 1,3-Propanediol; 101/58; 45/90; 631/326/2522; 631/61/252; Anaerobiosis - physiology; Arabinose; Arabinose - metabolism; Batch culture; Bioreactors; Clostridium - metabolism; Fermentation; Glucose - metabolism; Glycerol; Glycerol - metabolism; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrolysates; Hydrolysis; Industrial Microbiology; Kinetics; Lignin - chemistry; Lignin - metabolism; Lignocellulose; Molasses; Molasses - microbiology; multidisciplinary; NAD; NAD - metabolism; NADH; Propylene Glycols - metabolism; Science; Stover; Sugar; Xylose; Xylose - metabolism
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep19044

Anaerobic fermentation using lignocellulosic hydrolysates as co-substrates is an economically attractive method to enhance 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD) production by increasing the conversion yield from glycerol. Lignocellulosic hydrolysates contain the mixed sugars that are primarily glucose, xylose and arabinose. Therefore, these three individual sugars were used, separately, as co-substrates with glycerol, in 1,3-PD production by a
Clostridium diolis
strain DSM 15410, resulting in an 18%–28% increase in the 1,3-PD yield. Co-fermentation of the mixed sugars and glycerol obtained a higher intracellular NADH/NAD
+
ratio and increased the 1,3-PD yield by 22% relative to fermentation of glycerol alone. Thereafter, two kinds of lignocellulosic hydrolysates, corn stover hydrolysate and corncob molasses, were individually co-fermented with glycerol. The maximum 1,3-PD yield from glycerol reached 0.85 mol/mol. Fed-batch co-fermentation was also performed, improving the 1,3-PD yield (from 0.62 mol/mol to 0.82 mol/mol). These results demonstrate that the co-fermentation strategy is an efficient and economical way to produce 1,3-PD from glycerol.