Abstract: Sewage sludge rich in carbohydrates and other nutrients could be a good feedstock for fuel/chemical production. In this study, fungal and engineered bacterial cultivations were integrated with a modified anaerobic digestion to accumulate fatty acids on sewage sludge. The anaerobic digestion was first adjusted to enable acetogenic bacteria to accumulate acetate. A fungus (Mortierella isabellina) and an engineered bacterium (Escherichia coli created by optimizing acetate utilization and fatty acid biosynthesis as well as overexpressing a regulatory transcription factor fadR) were then cultured on the acetate solution to accumulate fatty acids. The engineered bacterium had higher fatty acid yield and titer than the fungus. Both medium- and long-chain fatty acids (C12:0-C18:0) were produced by the engineered bacterium, while the fungus mainly synthesized long-chain fatty acids (C16:0-C18:3). This study demonstrated a potential path that combines fungus or engineered bacterium with anaerobic digestion to achieve simultaneous organic waste treatment and advanced biofuel production.
Abstract: The herbaceous perennial energy crops miscanthus, giant reed, and switchgrass, along with the annual crop residue corn stover, were evaluated for their bioconversion potential. A co-hydrolysis process, which applied dilute acid pretreatment, directly followed by enzymatic saccharification without detoxification and liquidsolid separation between these two steps was implemented to convert lignocellulose into monomeric sugars (glucose and xylose). A factorial experiment in a randomized block design was employed to optimize the co-hydrolysis process. Under the optimal reaction conditions, corn stover exhibited the greatest total sugar yield (glucose+xylose) at 0.545gg1 dry biomass at 83.3% of the theoretical yield, followed by switch grass (0.44gg1 dry biomass, 65.8% of theoretical yield), giant reed (0.355gg1 dry biomass, 64.7% of theoretical yield), and miscanthus (0.349gg1 dry biomass, 58.1% of theoretical yield). The influence of combined severity factor on the susceptibility of pretreated substrates to enzymatic hydrolysis was clearly discernible, showing that co-hydrolysis is a technically feasible approach to release sugars from lignocellulosic biomass. The oleaginous fungus Mortierella isabellina was selected and applied to the co-hydrolysate mediums to accumulate fungal lipids due to its capability of utilizing both C5 and C6 sugars. Fungal cultivations grown on the co-hydrolysates exhibited comparable cell mass and lipid production to the synthetic medium with pure glucose and xylose. These results elucidated that combining fungal fermentation and co-hydrolysis to accumulate lipids could have the potential to enhance the utilization efficiency of lignocellulosic biomass for advanced biofuels production. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 10391049. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Abstract: Three pretreated corn stover (ammonia fiber expansion, dilute acid, and dilute alkali) were used as carbon source to culture Trichoderma reesei Rut C-30 for cellulase and xylanase production. The results indicated that the cultures on ammonia fiber expansion and alkali pretreated corn stover had better enzyme production than the acid pretreated ones. The consequent enzymatic hydrolysis was performed applying fungal enzymes on pretreated corn stover samples. Tukey's statistical comparisons exhibited that there were significant differences on enzymatic hydrolysis among different combination of fungal enzymes and pretreated corn stover. The higher sugar yields were achieved by the enzymatic hydrolysis of dilute alkali pretreated corn stover.
Abstract: The filamentous fungus Mortierella isabellina ATCC42613 was used to assess the conversion of different carbon sources (glucose, xylose, mixed glucose/xylose, acid and alkali treated corn stover hydrolysate) in submerged media to lipid. Glucose and xylose cultures composed of varying initial sugar concentrations (28.1-91.7 g L-1, and 26.6-90.9 g L-1 respectively) showed a positive correlation to lipid accumulation, with significant quantities occurring at the upper limit of the substrate range (10.2, and 8.8 g L-1 lipid respectively). While lipid concentrations increased with each incremental glucose and xylose level, the lipid yield (0.41-0.44, and 0.39-0.43 g g(-1) cell mass respectively), and intracellular fatty acid composition remained relatively constant. Additionally, sulfuric acid hydrolysate, without detoxification, exhibited greater cell mass, and equivalent lipid production compared to synthetic medium with similar initial glucose and xylose concentrations. These results elucidate the potential of utilizing filamentous fungal fermentation to accumulate lipids from lignocellulosic biomass for biodiesel production. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate whether near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) or mid-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (MIRS) could be used to determine the composition of algal turf scrubber samples. We assayed a set of algal turf scrubber (ATS) samples (n = 117) by NIRS, MIRS, and conventional means for ash, total sugar, mono-sugar, total N, and P content. A subset of these samples (n = 64) were assayed by conventional means, MIRS, and NIRS for total lipid and total fatty acid content. We developed calibrations using all the samples and a one-out cross-validation procedure under partial least-squares regression. This process was repeated using 75% of randomly selected samples to develop the calibration and the remaining samples as an independent test set. Results using the entire sample set demonstrated that NIRS and MIRS can accurately determine ash (r (2) = 0.994 and 0.995, respectively) and total N (r (2) = 0.787 and 0.820, respectively) content, but not phosphorus, total sugar, or mono-sugar content in ATS samples. Results using the 64 sample subset indicated that neither NIRS nor MIRS can accurately determine lipid or total fatty acid content in ATS samples.
