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Investigation of fermentation conditions of biodiesel by-products for high production of β-farnesene by an engineered Escherichia coli

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Abstract

Recently, the research on conversion of biodiesel by-products to high value-added products has received much attention, due to the adverse effects of large accumulations of biodiesel by-products caused by the rapid increase in biodiesel production. Herein, this study investigated the utilization of by-products crude glycerol (CG-1 and CG-2) from two different industrial methods of biodiesel production and the favorable fermentation conditions for the high yield of β-farnesene by an engineered Escherichia coli F4, which harbored an optimized mevalonate pathway. Through analyzing by-products’ components and fermentation performance, we found that CG-2 did not contain harmful impurities such as methanol and black solid impurities, and the β-farnesene production was up to 2.7 g/L from CG-2, which was similar to that from pure glycerol (2.5 g/L) and higher than that (2.21 g/L) from CG-1. Therefore, CG-2 was more suitable for β-farnesene production than CG-1, which might provide a reference for choosing a more suitable method on practical biodiesel production. Afterward, a variety of important fermentation conditions were explored using CG-2 as a substrate in shaken flasks. Under the optimal conditions (including induced cell density 1.0, initial cell density 0.25, temperature after induction 33 °C, initial medium pH 6.5), the yield of β-farnesene from CG-2 reached 10.31 g/L in a 5-L bioreactor, which was 2.8-fold higher than initial conditions in shake flasks and was the highest yield of β-farnesene produced from biodiesel by-products by fermentation as well. The recommended fermentation conditions in this work will provide a valuable reference for the industrial production of β-farnesene utilizing biodiesel by-products.

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Funding

This study received financial support from the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups (No. 21621004), the Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2019M651040), the Key Project of Science and Technology Committee of Tianjin (No. 17YFZCSY01080), the Tianjin Development Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2018), and the Beiyang Young Scholar of Tianjin University (2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Engineering Research Center, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Pin Yao, Shengping You, Wei Qi, Rongxin Su & Zhimin He

  2. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Shengping You, Wei Qi, Rongxin Su & Zhimin He

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Shengping You, Wei Qi & Rongxin Su

  4. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Membrane Science and Desalination Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Wei Qi & Rongxin Su

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  1. Pin Yao
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Yao, P., You, S., Qi, W. et al. Investigation of fermentation conditions of biodiesel by-products for high production of β-farnesene by an engineered Escherichia coli. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 22758–22769 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08893-z

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