Lactic acid bacteria ethanol production using

Lactose is readily fermented by lactic acid bacteria, especially Lactococcus spp. and Lactobacillus spp., to lactic acid, and by some species of yeast, e.g. Kluyveromyces spp., to ethanol (Figure 2.27). Lactic acid may be used as a food acidulant, as a component in the manufacture of plastics, or converted to ammonium lactate as a source of nitrogen for animal nutrition. It can be converted to propionic acid, which has many food applications, by Propionibacterium spp. Potable ethanol is being produced commercially from lactose in whey or UF permeate. The ethanol may also be used for industrial purposes or as a fuel but is probably not cost-competitive with ethanol produced by fermentation of sucrose or chemically. The ethanol may also be oxidized to acetic acid. The mother liquor remaining from the production of lactic acid or ethanol may be subjected to anaerobic digestion with the production of methane (CH4) for use as a fuel several such plants are in commercial use. 

Most polysaccharides used today are of plant origin. However, also bacteria produce polysaccharides. Especially extracellular polysaccharides (eps s) produced by lactic acid bacteria may find application in foods. Lactic acid bacteria are food-grade organisms and the eps s produced offer a wide variety of structures. The presence of eps is considered to contribute greatly to texture and structure of fermented milk products. An exopolysaccharide produced by Lactococcus lactis ssp. cremoris B40 was chosen as a subject of study. The eps was a gift from the Dutch Institute of Dairy Research (NIZO), Ede, the Netherlands. The eps had no gelling properties, could not be precipitated in plates by ethanol or cetylpyridinium chloride and did not show interaction with Congo red. 

Other types of fermenters have been developed for specific applications. Anaerobic bioreactors are used when microorganisms do the conversions in the absence of oxygen. Examples are the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation with Clostridium species, the production of lactic acid with lactic acid bacteria, and bioethanol fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Because of the need for large volumes with these low-cost products, and the ease of construction, these... 

Cocoa bean fermentation is a mixed-culture process, consisting initially of fermentations by yeast and lactic acid bacteria followed by oxidation of the fermentation products ethanol and lactic acid into acetic acid and acetoin by several Acetohacter strains, of which /I. pasteurianus is the prominent one (Moens et al. 2014). A C-based carbon flux analysis of Acetohacter during cocoa pulp fermentation-simulating conditions revealed a functionally separated metabolism during co-consumption of ethanol and lactate. Acetate was almost exclusively derived from ethanol, whereas lactate served for formation of acetoin and biomass building blocks. This switch was attributed to the lack of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase and malic enzyme activities, which prevents conversion of oxalo-acetate and malate formed by acetate metabolism in the TCA cycle to PEP and pyruvate and subsequently to acetoin (Adler et al. 2014). Lactate, on the other hand, can be converted to pyruvate, which is then used for acetoin formation or, after conversion to PEP by pymvate phosphate dikinase, for gluconeogenesis. The inability of conversion of TCA cycle intermediates to PEP resembles the situation in G. oxydans, where in addition no enzyme for conversion of pyruvate to PEP is present. 

Food can be preserved by fermentation using selected strains nf yeast, lactic acid-producing bacteria, or molds. The production of ethanol, lactic and other organic acids, and anlimicrobial agents in the food, along with the removal of fermentable sugars, can yield a product having an extended shelf life. 

Lactic acid is mainly prepared in large quantities (around 200 kT per year) by the bacterial fomentation of carbohydrates. These fermentation processes can be classified according to the type of bacteria used (i) the hetero-fermentative method, which produces less than 1.8 mol of lactic acid per mole of hexose, with otho- metabolites in significant quantities, such as acetic acid, ethanol, glycerol, mannitol and carbon dioxide (ii) the homo-fomentative method, which leads to greater yields of lactic acid and lower levels of by-products, and is mainly used in industrial processes [3]. The convo-sion yield from glucose to lactic acid is more than 90 per cent. 

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