No abstract

This study aimed to examine the influence of inhibitors including acetic acid (AA), formic acid (FA), and phenol (P) on ethanol production from the glucose-based medium using immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a bioreactor. Results showed that the highest ethanol yields and productions were determined as 45.64% and 38.10 g/L, 44.8% and 36.67 g/L, and 44.46% and 39.07 g/L by the addition of 2.5 g/L AA, 0.5 g/L FA, and 0.5 g/L P into the fermentation medium, respectively. Regarding mathematical modeling, the models MGM (AA), Huang (FA-P) were the best models to predict the experimental ethanol production. It was determined that the values forecasted with the models MMF (AA-FA), Weibull (P) agreed with the actual biomass growth. Besides, to forecast the observed values of the substrate consumption, the most suitable models were Weibull (AA-FA-P). Consequently, the immobilized-cell ethanol fermentations with inhibitors were successfully performed and their limit values were determined.