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Acetic acid production from food wastes using yeast and acetic acid bacteria micro-aerobic fermentation

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Abstract

In this study, yeast and acetic acid bacteria strains were adopted to enhance the ethanol-type fermentation resulting to a volatile fatty acids yield of 30.22 g/L, and improve acetic acid production to 25.88 g/L, with food wastes as substrate. In contrast, only 12.81 g/L acetic acid can be obtained in the absence of strains. The parameters such as pH, oxidation reduction potential and volatile fatty acids were tested and the microbial diversity of different strains and activity of hydrolytic ferment were investigated to reveal the mechanism. The optimum pH and oxidation reduction potential for the acetic acid production were determined to be at 3.0–3.5 and −500 mV, respectively. Yeast can convert organic matters into ethanol, which is used by acetic acid bacteria to convert the organic wastes into acetic acid. The acetic acid thus obtained from food wastes micro-aerobic fermentation liquid could be extracted by distillation to get high-pure acetic acid.

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Abbreviations

VFA:

Volatile fatty acid

ORP:

Oxidation reduction potential

TS:

Total solid

VS:

Volatile solid

COD:

Chemical oxygen demand

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51278350) for the support of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Yang Li, Dongwei He, Dongjie Niu & Youcai Zhao

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  1. Yang Li
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  2. Dongwei He
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  3. Dongjie Niu
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  4. Youcai Zhao
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Correspondence to Youcai Zhao.

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Li, Y., He, D., Niu, D. et al. Acetic acid production from food wastes using yeast and acetic acid bacteria micro-aerobic fermentation. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 38, 863–869 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-014-1329-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-014-1329-8

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