Continuous H-B-E fermentation by Clostridium carboxidivorans: CO vs syngas

Leveraging renewable carbon-based resources for energy and chemical production is a promising approach to decrease reliance on fossil fuels. This entails a thermo/biotechnological procedure wherein bacteria, notably Clostridia, ferment syngas, converting CO or CO₂ + H₂ into Hexanol, Butanol and Ethanol (H-B-E fermentation). This work reports of Clostridium carboxidivorans performance in a stirred tank reactor continuously operated with respect to the gas and the cell/liquid phases. The primary objective was to assess acid and solvent production at pH 5.6 by feeding pure CO or synthetic syngas under gas flow differential conditions. Fermentation tests were conducted at four different dilution rates (D_L) of the fresh medium in the range 0.034–0.25 h⁻¹. The fermentation pathways of C. carboxidivorans were found to be nearly identical for both CO and syngas, with consistent growth and metabolite production at pH 5.6 within a range of dilution rates. Wash-out conditions were observed at a D_L of 0.25 h⁻¹ regardless of the carbon source. Ethanol was the predominant solvent produced, but a shift towards butanol production was observed with CO as the substrate and towards hexanol production with synthetic syngas. In particular, the maximum cell concentration (0.5 g_DM/L) was obtained with pure CO at D_L 0.05 h⁻¹; the highest solvent productivity (60 mg/L*h of total solvent) was obtained at D_L 0.17 h⁻¹ by using synthetic syngas as C-source. The findings highlight the importance of substrate composition and operating conditions in syngas fermentation processes. These insights contribute to the optimization of syngas fermentation processes for biofuel and chemical production.