Whey waste utilization

Wasserman, A. E., Hopkins, W. J. and Porges, N. 1958. Whey utilization—growth conditions for Saccharomyces fragilis. Sewage Ind. Wastes 30, 913-920. 

Several chapters also demonstrate the use of smaller molecular-weight carbohydrates (i.e., monomers) in adhesives. Tony Conner and his colleagues (Chapter 25) explore the partial replacement of phenol-formaldehyde adhesives used to bond wood with various wood-derived carbohydrates. A1 Christiansen (Chapter 26) and Joe Karchesy and his coworkers (Chapter 27) investigate the very complicated chemistry and the practical application of adhesives based on the reaction of a carbohydrate with urea and phenol. Tito Viswanathan (Chapter 28) describes his attempts to utilize a very large carbohydrate waste stream, whey permeates from the processing of cheese, for the production of wood adhesives. 

Pandian SRK, Deepak V, Kalishwaralal K, Rameshkumar N, Jeyaraj M, Gurunathan S (2010) Optimization and fed-batch production of PHB utilizing dairy waste and sea water as nutrient sources by Bacillus megaterium SRKP-3. Bioresour Technol 101 705-711 Pantazaki AA, Papaneophytou CP, Pritsa AG, Liakopoulou-Kyriakides M, Kyriakidis DA (2009) Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates from whey by Thermus thermophilus HB8. Process Biochem 44 847-853... 

It is known that agricultural raw materials such as sugarcane or corn can be used as basic materials in PLA production. However, waste biomass such as whey and cellulose waste can also be utilized. These basic materials will be transferred... 

Single-cell proteins are produced mainly for animal feed and food products and to utilize waste or side products, such as molasses, milk whey, starchy wastes, and sulfite liquor. There are a range of microorganisms used for these purposes. 

Molasses, whey, sulphite liquors and potato wastes all have been utilized successfully over the past few years. However, the alternate uses for molasses for direct animal feeding, citric acid or alcohol production have made it available only at a price. In many cases this price has been too high to justify economic exploitation. 

Bednarski, W., Leman, J. and Tomasik, J. (1986) Utilization of beet molasses and whey for fat biosynthesis by a yeast. Agric. Wastes 18, 19-26. 

Methanol is more expensive for nitrogen removal than other carbon substrates, such as brewery wastes, molasses, and whey. In many cases it is preferred, however, because it can be utilized to extinction. There are only a few such plants in the United States and perhaps as many more in the rest of the world. 

If a fermentation process is used for PHA synthesis this problem can partially be overcome by using cheap surplus and waste materials as renewable carbon sources (e.g. molasses, whey, cellulose hydrolysate) or other cheap carbon sources from fossil resources like methanol derived from natural gas, because roughly 50% of the total production costs derive from the carbon source costs. Unfortunately many of the well known production strains can not be used for PHA production from such substrates, because these microbial strains show either low yields or low production rates, when they grow on these substrates, or they simply cannot utilize these carbon sources at all. These drawbacks can be overcome either by isolating new microbial strains or by applying genetically modified strains for the production process. 

In the 1980s, Davies (1992) reported an economic analysis for SCO production ( 0.80— 1.00/kg MO) from waste lactose (200,000 m whey per year), utilizing the yeast strain Candida curvata. Based on this cost and using an order-of-magnitude approximation, the SCO production cost in 2008 would have been 1.4—1.8/kg (this value does not include the biodiesel production cost from SCO) in the case that whey is used as carbon source. Ratledge and Cohen (2008) reported that the minimum price of microbial oil produced from yeast or fungi could be 3/kg. 

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