Fermentation industry pyruvic acid

Lactic acid (LA) is one of the top carbohydrate-derived chemicals and it was recently included in BozeU and Petersen s revised selecticai of the top ten sugar-based chemicals [10, 24]. The conversion of carbohydrates into LA via anaerobic fermentation has been known for ages [25]. The first industrial fermentation was developed by A. Boehringer in 1895 and at the present time the global installed production capacity is estimated at 0.5 Mton year [10, 26, 27]. The current fermentation process and its issues will be critically discussed in Sect. 3 in light of the major application of LA today, i.e., as monomer for commercial bioplastic PLA [28]. Besides being used for polyester synthesis, LA is seriously considered as a platform chemical for the synthesis of a diverse range of chemicals such as pyruvic acid, 2,3-pentanedione, and acrylic acid [10, 29]. 

In this chapter we describe the individual reactions of glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, and the pentose phosphate pathway and the functional significance of each pathway. We also describe the various fates of the pyruvate produced by glycolysis they include the fermentations that are used by many organisms in anaerobic niches to produce ATP and that are exploited industrially as sources of ethanol, lactic acid, and other... 

Production of 2,3-BD is via a mixed acid fermentation pathway that also leads to a mix of acetate, lactate, formate, succinate, and ethanol. Juni and Heym (1956) proposed that 2,3-BD is produced in bacteria from pyruvate through the intermediates a-acetolactate and acetoin. Also, microorganisms can degrade 2,3-BD (i.e., it is biodegradable), a feature that may add to its attractiveness as an industrial chemical. 

Succinic acid can be produced from various carbon sources through fermentation by a variety of microorganisms. Common by-products produced alongside succinate include lactate, acetate, pyruvate, formate, and ethanol. This is referred to as mixed-acid fermentation (Zeikus et al., 1999). No microorganism has been discovered that is naturally capable of monosuccinate fermentation. It is essential to note that industrial fermentations are usually... 

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