Industrial Production of Lactic Acid

Lactic acid production in a membrane bioreactor system with thermophilicBacillus coagulans: fouling analysis of the used ceramic membranes

“…Moreover, the market of LA has grown 10-fold since 2002 due to many novel applications, the largest being related to the synthesis of polylactic acid (PLA) from LA (2). However, the cost of PLA, which is strongly affected by the cost of its raw material, i.e., LA, is responsible for its lack of competitiveness to petroleum-derived plastics (3). Therefore, reducing the production cost through increasing the volumetric productivity has become an important goal concerning the titer, rate, as well as yield of LA production in both manufacturing and downstream separation processes.…”

Transformation of Biomass into Commodity Chemicals Using Enzymes or Cells

“…266 Numerous studies has been performed on strain and fermentation development to achieve efficient processes, not only using glucose but also from cheaper carbohydrate sources. 265,233,267 Here only some of the best results using glucose are given.…”

“…265 In 2011, the fermentative lactic acid production has been estimated at 370,000 t/a. 233 The metabolic pathway from glucose to lactic acid is straightforward: glycolysis to pyruvate, which is reduced using NADH by D-or L-lactate dehydrogenase ( Figure 14). Theoretically, this could overall lead to splitting of 1 mol glucose into 2 mol lactic acid, corresponding to a mass yield of 1 g/g, which has indeed been achieved.…”

“…To obtain the undissociated acid in reasonable concentration, a pH below about 3 is required. To simplify the overall production process, and in particular the product recovery, acidtolerant microorganisms such as the yeast S. cerevisiae are often developed for carboxylic acid production, 233,234 as alternative to carboxylate-producing bacteria such as E. coli. …”

High throughput automated colorimetric method for the screening of l-lactic acid producing microorganisms

“…Despite their efficiency, the cost of the current lactic acid bio-processes is still an obstacle to this application (Miller et al, 2011 [2]). To ameliorate lactic acid producing strains, researchers are using mutations and metabolic engineering techniques, as well as medium optimization.…”