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Process optimization for butanol production from developed rice straw hydrolysate using Clostridium acetobutylicum MTCC 481 strain

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Abstract

In this study, an attempt is made to optimize the effect of various physical and cultural parameters on butanol production by microbial strain Clostridium acetobutylicum MTCC 481 by employing L18 orthogonal array design of experiments. A set of five parameters, viz., temperature, pH, inoculum size, inoculum age, and agitation have been studied. Utilizing a pre-optimized rice straw hydrolysate medium, the clostridial strain produced maximum amount of butanol at optimum conditions of temperature 37 °C, pH 4.0 ± 0.5, inoculum size 5 % (v/v), inoculum age 18 h, and agitation 150 rpm. Among these parameters, pH, temperature, and agitation were found to be the most significant factors affecting solvent production. The optimized physical and cultural parameters were further verified at shake flask and bioreactor scale (2 L and 5 L bioreactor). Experiments using 2 and 5 L bioreactor under the optimized process condition showed nearly complete utilization of soluble sugars with the production of 15.84 g L−1 of total solvents with 12.17 g L−1 of butanol in 2 L bioreactor and 16.91 g L−1 of total solvents with 12.22 g L−1 of butanol in a 5 L of bioreactor, respectively. The experimental data were further validated by fitting it to a kinetic model reported in literature to determine the kinetic parameters of the fermentation process.

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Abbreviations

ABE:

Acetone butanol ethanol

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

CMM:

Cooked meat medium

DNS:

Dinitrosalicylic acid

DOE:

Design of experiments

μ :

Specific growth rate (per hour)

MS:

Mean of squares

MTCC:

Microbial Type Culture Collection

NCIM:

National Collection of Industrial Micro-organisms

P :

Product concentration (grams per cubic liter)

P 0 :

Initial product concentration (grams per cubic liter)

P max :

Maximum product concentration (grams per cubic liter)

P t :

Kinetic constant

PABA:

p-Aminobenzoic acid

RCA:

Reinforced clostridial agar

RCM:

Reinforced clostridial medium

RMSD:

Root mean square deviation

RMSE:

Root mean square error

RS:

Rice straw

RSH:

Rice straw hydrolysate

SS:

Sum of squares

X :

Biomass concentration (grams per cubic liter)

X m :

Maximum biomass concentration (grams per cubic liter)

X 0 :

Biomass concentration (grams per cubic liter)

Y P/S :

Product yield on the utilized substrate

Y X/S :

Biomass yield on the utilized substrate

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Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy for providing NRE fellowship to Ms. Amrita Ranjan. The infrastructural and analytical facilities provided by Centre for Energy and Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, and Spectrophotometric analysis facility provided by CIF, IIT Guwahati, are also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Energy, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 781 039, Assam, India

    Amrita Ranjan & Vijayanand S. Moholkar

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 781 039, Assam, India

    Rahul Mayank & Vijayanand S. Moholkar

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  1. Amrita Ranjan
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  2. Rahul Mayank
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  3. Vijayanand S. Moholkar
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Correspondence to Vijayanand S. Moholkar.

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Ranjan, A., Mayank, R. & Moholkar, V.S. Process optimization for butanol production from developed rice straw hydrolysate using Clostridium acetobutylicum MTCC 481 strain. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 3, 143–155 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-012-0062-2

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