Abstract
We have used liquid waste obtained from a beer brewery process to produce ethanol. To increase the productivity, genetically modified organism, Escherichiacoli KO11, was used for ethanol fermentation. Yeast was also used to produce ethanol from the same feed stock, and the ethanol production rates and resulting concentrations of sugars and ethanol were compared with those of KO11. In the experiments, first the raw wastewater was directly fermented using two strains with no saccharification enzymes added. Then, commercial enzymes, α-amylase, pectinase, or a combination of both, were used for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation, and the results were compared with those of the no-enzyme experiments for KO11 and yeast. Under the given conditions with or without the enzymes, yeast produced ethanol more rapidly than E. coli KO11, but the final ethanol concentrations were almost the same. For both yeast and KO11, the enzymes were observed to enhance the ethanol yields by 61–84% as compared to the fermentation without enzymes. The combination of the two enzymes increased ethanol production the most for the both strains. The advantages of using KO11 were not demonstrated clearly as compared to the yeast fermentation results.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. L.O. Ingram’s lab at the University of Florida, Gainesville for their donation of the E. coli KO11 strain, and CIFT (Center for Innovative Food Technology) and the University of Toledo for funding and support. Special thanks go to Mr. Somik Ghosh (EISC) for providing us the feedstock from the brewery.
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Rao, K., Chaudhari, V., Varanasi, S. et al. Enhanced ethanol fermentation of brewery wastewater using the genetically modified strain E. coli KO11. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 74, 50–60 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-006-0643-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-006-0643-8