Impact of zinc supplementation on the improved fructose/xylose utilization and butanol production during acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation.

Lignocellulosic biomass and dedicated energy crops such as Jerusalem artichoke are promising alternatives for biobutanol production by solventogenic clostridia. However, fermentable sugars such as fructose or xylose released from the hydrolysis of these feedstocks were subjected to the incomplete utilization by the strains, leading to relatively low butanol production and productivity. When 0.001 g/L ZnSO4·7H2O was supplemented into the medium containing fructose as sole carbon source, 12.8 g/L of butanol was achieved with butanol productivity of 0.089 g/L/h compared to only 4.5 g/L of butanol produced with butanol productivity of 0.028 g/L/h in the control without zinc supplementation. Micronutrient zinc also led to the improved butanol production up to 8.3 g/L derived from 45.2 g/L xylose as sole carbon source with increasing butanol productivity by 31.7%. Moreover, the decreased acids production was observed under the zinc supplementation condition, resulting in the increased butanol yields of 0.202 g/g-fructose and 0.184 g/g-xylose, respectively. Similar improvements were also observed with increasing butanol production by 130.2 % and 8.5 %, butanol productivity by 203.4% and 18.4%, respectively, in acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentations from sugar mixtures of fructose/glucose (4:1) and xylose/glucose (1:2) simulating the hydrolysates of Jerusalem artichoke tubers and corn stover. The results obtained from transcriptional analysis revealed that zinc may have regulatory mechanisms for the sugar transport and metabolism of Clostridium acetobutylicum L7. Therefore, micronutrient zinc supplementation could be an effective way for economic development of butanol production derived from these low-cost agricultural feedstocks.

Enhanced removal of Zn(2+) or Cd(2+) by the flocculating Chlorella vulgaris JSC-7.

Microalgae are attracting attention due to their potentials in mitigating CO2 emissions and removing environmental pollutants. However, harvesting microalgal biomass from diluted cultures is one of the bottlenecks for developing economically viable processes for this purpose. Microalgal cells can be harvested by cost-effective sedimentation when flocculating strains are used. In this study, the removal of Zn(2+) and Cd(2+) by the flocculating Chlorella vulgaris JSC-7 was studied. The experimental results indicated that more than 80% Zn(2+) and 60% Cd(2+) were removed by the microalgal culture within 3 days in the presence up to 20.0mg/L Zn(2+) and 4.0mg/L Cd(2+), respectively, which were much higher than that observed with the culture of the non-flocculating C. vulgaris CNW11. Furthermore, the mechanism underlying this phenomenon was explored by investigating the effect of Zn(2+) and Cd(2+) on the growth and metabolic activities of the microalgal strains. It was found that the flocculation of the microalga improved its growth, synthesis of photosynthetic pigments and antioxidation activity under the stressful conditions, indicating a better tolerance to the heavy metal ions for a potential in removing them more efficiently from contaminated wastewaters, together with a bioremediation of other nutritional components contributed to the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems.

Assessment and regression analysis on instant catapult steam explosion pretreatment of corn stover.

Instant catapult steam explosion (ICSE) offers enormous physical force on lignocellulosic biomass due to its extremely short depressure duration. In this article, the response surface methodology was applied to optimize the effect of working parameters including pressure, maintaining time and mass loading on the crystallinity index and glucose yield of the pretreated corn stover. It was found that the pressure was of essential importance, which determined the physical force that led to the morphological changes without significant chemical reactions, and on the other hand the maintaining time mainly contributed to the thermo-chemical reactions. Furthermore, the pretreated biomass was assessed by scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectra to understand mechanisms underlying the ICSE pretreatment.

Bioflocculant production from Solibacillus silvestris W01 and its application in cost-effective harvest of marine microalga Nannochloropsis oceanica by flocculation.

Microalgae are widely studied for biofuel production, however, current technologies to harvest microalgae for this purpose are not well developed. In this work, a bacterial strain W01 was isolated from activated sludge and identified as Solibacillus silvestris. Bioflocculant in the culture broth of W01 showed 90% flocculating efficiency on marine microalga Nannochloropsis oceanica, and no metal ion was required for the flocculation process. Chemical analysis of the purified bioflocculant indicated that it is a proteoglycan composed of 75.1% carbohydrate and 24.9% protein (w/w). The bioflocculant exhibits no effect on the growth of microalgal cells and can be reused to for economical harvesting of N. oceanica. This is the first report that strain of S. silvestris can produce bioflocculant for microalgae harvest. The novel bioflocculant produced by W01 has the potential to harvest marine microalgae for cost-effective production of microalgal bioproducts.

Application of low-cost algal nitrogen source feeding in fuel ethanol production using high gravity sweet potato medium.

Protein-rich bloom algae biomass was employed as nitrogen source in fuel ethanol fermentation using high gravity sweet potato medium containing 210.0 g l(-1) glucose. In batch mode, the fermentation could not accomplish even in 120 h without any feeding of nitrogen source. While, the feeding of acid-hydrolyzed bloom algae powder (AHBAP) notably promoted fermentation process but untreated bloom algae powder (UBAP) was less effective than AHBAP. The fermentation times were reduced to 96, 72, and 72 h if 5.0, 10.0, and 20.0 g l(-1) AHBAP were added into medium, respectively, and the ethanol yields and productivities increased with increasing amount of feeding AHBAP. The continuous fermentations were performed in a three-stage reactor system. Final concentrations of ethanol up to 103.2 and 104.3 g l(-1) with 4.4 and 5.3 g l(-1) residual glucose were obtained using the previously mentioned medium feeding with 20.0 and 30.0 g l(-1) AHBAP, at dilution rate of 0.02 h(-1). Notably, only 78.5 g l(-1) ethanol and 41.6 g l(-1) residual glucose were obtained in the comparative test without any nitrogen source feeding. Amino acids analysis showed that approximately 67% of the protein in the algal biomass was hydrolyzed and released into the medium, serving as the available nitrogen nutrition for yeast growth and metabolism. Both batch and continuous fermentations showed similar fermentation parameters when 20.0 and 30.0 g l(-1) AHBAP were fed, indicating that the level of available nitrogen in the medium should be limited, and an algal nitrogen source feeding amount higher than 20.0 g l(-1) did not further improve the fermentation performance.