Economic process to co-produce poly(ε-l-lysine) and poly(l-diaminopropionic acid) by a pH and dissolved oxygen control strategy.

This study tended to apply biorefinery of indigenous microbes to the fermentation of target-product generation through a novel control strategy. A novel strategy for co-producing two valuable homopoly(amino acid)s, poly(ε-l-lysine) (ε-PL) and poly(l-diaminopropionic acid) (PDAP), was developed by controlling pH and dissolved oxygen concentrations in Streptomyces albulus PD-1 fermentation. The production of ε-PL and PDAP got 29.4 and 9.6gL(-1), respectively, via fed-batch cultivation in a 5L bioreactor. What is more, the highest production yield (21.8%) of similar production systems was achieved by using this novel strategy. To consider the economic-feasibility, large-scale production in a 1t fermentor was also implemented, which would increase the gross profit of 54,243.5USD from one fed-batch bioprocess. This type of fermentation, which produces multiple commercial products from a unified process is attractive, because it will improve the utilization rate of raw materials, enhance production value and enrich product variety.

Factors affecting the performance of a single-chamber microbial fuel cell-type biological oxygen demand sensor.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are devices that exploit microorganisms as biocatalysts to degrade organic matter or sludge present in wastewater (WW), and thereby generate electricity. We developed a simple, low-cost single-chamber microbial fuel cell (SCMFC)-type biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) sensor using carbon felt (anode) and activated sludge, and demonstrated its feasibility in the construction of a real-time BOD measurement system. Further, the effects of anodic pH and organic concentration on SCMFC performance were examined, and the correlation between BOD concentration and its response time was analyzed. Our results demonstrated that the SCMFC exhibited a stable voltage after 132 min following the addition of synthetic WW (BOD concentration: 200 mg/L). Notably, the response signal increased with an increase in BOD concentration (range: 5-200 mg/L) and was found to be directly proportional to the substrate concentration. However, at higher BOD concentrations (>120 mg/L) the response signal remained unaltered. Furthermore, we optimized the SCMFC using synthetic WW, and tested it with real WW. Upon feeding real WW, the BOD values exhibited a standard deviation from 2.08 to 8.3% when compared to the standard BOD5 method, thus demonstrating the practical applicability of the developed system to real treatment effluents.