Biological itaconic acid production can by catalyzed by Aspergillus terreus (a filamentous fungi) where the fermentation medium pH is of prominent importance. Therefore, in this work, we investigated what benefits the different pH regulation options might offer in enhancing the process. The batch itaconic acid fermentation data underwent a kinetic analysis and the pH control alternatives were ranked subsequently. It would appear that the pH-shift strategy (initial adjustment of pH to 3 and its maintenance at 2.5 after 48 h) resulted in the most attractive fermentation pattern and could hence be recommended to achieve itaconic acid production with an improved performance using A. terreus from carbohydrate, such as glucose. Under this condition, the itaconic acid titer potential, the maximal itaconic acid (titer) production rate, the length of lag-phase and itaconic acid yield were 87.32 g/L, 0.22 g/L/h, 56.04 h and 0.35 g/g glucose, respectively.

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In this work, itaconic acid (IA) was produced biotechnologically by Aspergillus terreus fungal strain from glucose. The performance of the batch fermentation was kinetically assessed and the maximal IA production potential, maximal production rate and lag-phase time were determined as 28.1 g/L, 3.83 g/L day and 1.52 days, respectively. In addition, the bioprocess was evaluated based on the most frequently used parameters, in particular IA titer (26.3 g/L), yield (0.22 g/g substrate) and productivity (0.1 g/L h), which were comparable to the already published literature. Furthermore, an on-line monitoring system was installed to the fermenter in order to measure the CO 2 content of the bioreactor off-gas. Actually, it was indicated by the results that the CO 2 production could have a linear-like relationship with the quantity of fungal biomass. Hence, the data collected in such a way may have the potential to establish an alternative methodology for the monitoring of biomass growth in the course of the biological transformation taking place.

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