Continuous Production of Ethanol in High Productivity Bioreactors Using Genetically Engineered Escherichia coli FBR5: Membrane and Fixed Cell Reactors

摘要

Biochemical reactor design plays a major role in determining the economics of fuel and chemical production. Reactors that result in continuously high productivities can significantly reduce the cost of the final product. With this aim, five different reactor systems were evaluated for ethanol production from xylose using genetically engineered E. coli FBR5, a strain developed to produce ethanol in high yield from xylose and other pentose sugars. The reactor systems evaluated were batch free cell, continuous free cell, continuous adsorbed cell, continuous entrapped cell, and continuous membrane cell recycle bioreactors. All of the five reactor systems were fed with a medium containing xylose 100 g/L, yeast extract 5 g/L, tryptone 10 g/L, and NaCl 5 g/L.