Enhancement of in situ adsorption on the acetone-butanol fermentation by Clostridium acetobutylicum

An integrated process of the acetone-butanol batch fermentation coupled with in situ toxic products removal was developed. It was found that the in situ adsorption process using polyvinylpyridine as the adsorbent enhanced the fermentation rates and the reactor productivity by Clostridium acetobutylicum. In a typical traditional acetone-butanol fermentation process, only about 60.0 g/L of glucose could be used in a batch operation mode and thus at maximum only 21 g/L of the total final products concentration could be achieved. In the adsorption-coupled system, an initial glucose concentration of 94.0 g/L was fermented when a weight ratio of the adsorbent to the fermentation broth of 3/10 was used. An overall product concentration of 29.8 g/L and a productivity of 0.92 g/L · h were achieved in the adsorptive batch fermentation system. Compared with the controlled traditional batch acetone-butanol fermentation, the integrated process increased the final product concentration by 54% and the productivity by 130%.