Improving fermentation performance of recombinant zymomonas in acetic acid-containing media

In the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass, the hydrolysis of the acetylated pentosans in hemicellulose during pretreatment produces acetic acid in the prehydrolysate. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is currently investigating a simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF) process that uses a proprietary metabolically engineered strain ofZymomonas mobilis that can coferment glucose and xylose. Acetic acid toxicity represents a major limitation to bioconversion, and cost-effective means of reducing the inhibitory effects of acetic acid represent an opportunity for significant increased productivity and reduced cost of producing fermentation fuel ethanol from biomass. In this study, the fermentation performance of recombinant Z.mobilis 39676:pZB4L, using a synthetic hardwood prehydrolysate containing 1% (w/v) yeast extract, 0.2% KH₂PO₄, 4% (w/v) xylose, and 0.8% (w/v) glucose, with varying amounts of acetic acid was examine. To minimize the concentration of the inhibitory undissociated form of acetic acid, the pH was controlled at 6.0. The final cell mass concentration decreased linearly with increasing level of acetic acid over the range 0-0.75% (w/v), with a 50% reduction at about 0.5% (w/v) acetic acid. The conversion efficiency was relatively unaffected, decreasing from 98 to 92%. In the absence of acetic acid, batch fermentations were complete at 24 h. In a batch fermentation with 0.75% (w/v) acetic acid, about two-thirds of the xylose was not metabolized after 48 h. In batch fermentations with 0.75% (w/v) acetic acid, increasing the initial glucose concentration did not have an enhancing effect on the rate of xylose fermentation. However, nearly complete xylose fermentation was achieved in 48 h when the bioreactor was fed glucose. In the fed-batch system, the rate of glucose feeding (0.5 g/h) was designed to simulate the rate of cellulolytic digestion that had been observed in a modeled SSCF process with recombinant Zymomonas. In the absence of acetic acid, this rate of glucose feeding did not inhibit xylose utilization. It is concluded that the inhibitory effect of acetic acid on xylose utilization in the SSCF biomass-to-ethanol process will be partially ameliorated because of the simultaneous saccharification of the cellulose.