Butanol production by fermentation process

The ABE fermentation is receiving renewed interest as a way to produce base chemicals and liquid fuels from renewable resources. Abundance and un-competitiveness with food sources are features required at potential substrates, features typically fulfilled by lignocellulosic biomass. This contribution reports results regarding the ABE fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum DSM 792 adopting sugars representative for hydrolysis products of lignocellulosic biomass. In particular four sugars were selected: two hexoses (glucose and mannose) and two pentoses (arabinose and xylose). Batch fermentations of single sugar were characterized in terms of pH and of concentration of biomass, acids, solvents and sugar. The specific velocity of both butanol production and sugar uptake were assessed with reference to single sugar. C. acetobutylicum was able to convert all the tested sugars and the fermentation performances - assessed in terms of sugar consumption and of solvent production – decreased with the sequence: glucose-mannose-arabinose-xylose.