Effect of Oxygen Mass Transfer between the Gas and Liquid Phases on the Production of Monascus Red Pigments by Monascus ruber

摘要

References(16) Cited-By(1) This study was designed to evaluate the effect of oxygen transfer from gas phase to liquid phase on pigment production in Monascus ruber NBRC 32318 cultured in a liquid medium composed mainly of rice starch. The cells were cultured in 500-mL baffled Erlenmeyer flasks either by varying the shaking speed from 40 to 200 rpm with a fixed culture volume of 100 mL or by varying the culture volume from 50 to 250 mL with a fixed shaking speed of 120 rpm. Maximum pigment concentration was obtained at a shaking speed of 160 rpm and a culture volume of 100 mL. Cell mass concentration and pigment concentration, evaluated using the volumetric liquid-phase mass transfer coefficient (kLa) of oxygen, confirmed that both parameters increased with increase in kLa, but reached a plateau when kLa was more than 100 h−1.