Fermentation product market

Although a tremendous number of fermentation processes have been researched and developed to various extents, only a couple of hundred ate used commercially. Fermentation industries have continued to expand in terms of the number of new products on the market, the total volume (capacity), and the total sales value of the products. The early 1990s U.S. market for fermentation products was estimated to be in the 9-10 x 10 range. The total world market is probably three times that figure, and antibiotics continue to comprise a primary share of the industry. Other principal product categories are enzymes, several organic acids, baker s yeast, ethanol (qv), vitamins (qv), and steroid hormones (qv). 

Ivermectin is the catalytic reduction product of avermectin, a macroHde containing a spiroketal ring system. Two other related antibiotics having significantly different stmctural features and biological properties, moxidectin and milbemycin oxime, were more recentiy introduced into the market. Although these compounds have no antimicrobial activity, they are sometimes referred to as antibiotics because they are derived from fermentation products and have very selective toxicities. They have potent activity against worms or helminths and certain ectoparasites such as mites and ticks. 

Bacteria, yeast and algae are produced in massive quantities of protein sources as food for animals and humans.1 SCP is considered a major source of feed for animals. The production of valuable biological products from industrial and agricultural wastes is considered through the bioconversion of solid wastes to added-value fermented product, which is easily marketable as animal feedstock. The waste streams that otherwise would cause pollution and threaten the environment can be considered raw material for CSP production using suitable strains of microorganisms. 

Further experience has demonstrated that it was not solely the choice of assay but the great good fortune to have received a group of cultures from the Kitasato Institute and to have made the decision to screen these cultures in the dubius assay. One of these cultures, OS-3153, was active. The screening of several tens of thousands of soil isolates in this assay has failed to detect any remotely similar anthelmintic activity. Of the fermentation products discussed, this is the only one where the activity for which the product was eventually marketed was found by direct screening. (Zeranol might be considered to be another example, but it was not discovered by screening.)... 

Aqueous solutions of these alcohols occur when sugar solutions are fermented and may be separated by distilling the mixtures. It is a common, economically valuable process for manufacturing potable liquors and for producing industrial alcohol from fermented molasses solutions or pulp mill wastes. One of the authors (A.Y.M.) reports that design and operation of these columns is hampered by lack of vapor-liquid equilibrium data, especially for making potable liquors, where small amounts of the alcohols other than ethanol greatly affect the flavor and, therefore, the products marketability. 

When perfected, synthesis-gas-to-ethanol technology can be expected to have a large impact on fermentation ethanol markets. It is likely that thermochemical ethanol would then be manufactured at production costs in the same range as methanol from synthesis gas, which can be produced by gasification of virtually any fossil or biomass feedstock. Applying the advances that have been made for conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks via enzymatically catalyzed options, it has been estimated that the production cost of fermentation ethanol... 

Fermentation plays an important role in the development of specific, characteristic flavourings. Natural fermentation is used since thousands of years to get wine, beer or cheese. Modem biotechnological processes have been developed to produce flavourings and flavouring building blocks based on natural processes. There are many important fermented products on the markets, produced by traditional and industrial processes ... 

Many vitamins too are produced by fermentation methods, although some are also produced by chemical synthesis. These represent another important class of submerged aerobic culture products. The value of prescription vitamins alone that were marketed in the U.S.A. in 1980 exceeded 130 million [75]. In 1959, during the early development of the commercial fermentative product vitamin B12, it sold for 139/g. Through processing improvements, the price of this product is now 8/g. Just the two B vitamins, riboflavin (vitamin B-2), (at 56/kg) and vitamin B-12, now account for U.S. sales of more than 20 million annually. 

The first commercial semi-synthetic antibiotic was ampicillin, which was introduced by Beecham in 1961,57L A few years later a new class of antibiotics, the cephalosporins, was marketed. Some of the semi-synthetic cephalosporins are prepared from 7-aminocephalosporanic acid (7-ACA), others from 7-aminodesace-toxycephalosporanic acid (7-ADCA). 7-ACA is an intermediate that can be obtained from the fermentation product cephalosporin C 7-ADCA is an intermediate that was discovered by Morin et al. 58 using chemical ring expansion of the penicillin nucleus (Fig. 12.2-4). The only difference between the two molecules is the absence of an acetoxy moiety in 7-ADCA. Today, the main intermediates for semi-synthetic cephalosporins (SSCs) and penicillins (SSPs), 7-ADCA and 6-APA, respectively, are produced in quantities of many thousands of tons annually in biocatalytic processes using penicillin amidases. 

Prior to World War II cane residues from U.S. alcohol fermentation were incinerated to make potash for fertilizer use. Both during and after World War II, millions of pounds of dry and also condensed molasses fermentation products were profitably sold for speciality industrial use outside of the feed industry. These markets have been neglected and could readily be established again on an economic basis to reduce overall ethanol production costs from cane or beet molasses. 

One product made directly by the fermentation of starch, cyclodextrin, is especially interesting as a fermentation product In 1998 the global market was estimated between 1800 and 3600tormes. As stated by the company, Wacker Chemie had at that time a production capacity of 3000 tonnes. Today, 10 years later, they have increased their production capacity to 7500 tonnes of cydodextrins a year. These molecules are used as stabilizers and exdpients in the pharmaceutical, life sdence, cosmetics, food, and agricultural industries. 

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