Continuous production of biosurfactant with foam fractionation |
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Authors: | Chien‐Yen Chen Simon C. Baker Richard C. Darton |
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Abstract: | A glucose‐limited chemostat was used to determine the growth parameters of BBK006 for continuous production of the biosurfactant surfactin. The continuous cultivation exhibited low maintenance metabolism (m = 0.39 mmolglucose gbacteria?1 h?1) and high molar growth yield ( gbacteria molglucose?1). It was found that the surfactin production rate in continuous culture was not only a function of dilution rate but also varied with the initial concentration of glucose in the feed. A high steady state concentration of surfactin (18 mg L?1) was maintained in the culture at a dilution rate of 0.2 h?1 when glucose concentration in the feed was 0.25 g L?1. This is the first demonstration of continuous surfactin production and recovery using glucose as a carbon source. The production of surfactin is known to be related to the age of the microorganisms and a simple mathematical model has been constructed to show how the age‐related production can be quantified. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry |
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Keywords: | foam fractionation biosurfactant surfactin maintenance metabolism continuous cultivation |
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