US 6,596,521 B1 · Method for manufacturing organic acid by high-efficiency continuous fermentation

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for manufacturing organic acid by high-efficiency fermentation, which comprises the steps of continuous culture of organic acid bacteria and collection of organic acid produced from the culture employing a cell-recycle multiple-stage continuous fermentor with serially connected fermentors, each of which comprises a fermentor containing a ferment container, temperature controller, stirrer, and pH controller; pumps for efflux-circulation of media from the fermentor; and, cell separator for separation and circulation of media from the pumps. According to the present method, the high-concentration lactic acid of 90 g/L can be produced with the high productivity of 50 g/L/h, which can reduce the facility cost and production cost in the bulk manufacturing process. In addition, the present invention can be effectively applied to the production of other organic acids such as acetic acid, formic acid, citric acid, malic acid, maleic acid, fumaric acid, and succinic acid, which show the end-product inhibition.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A method of multi-stage fermentation comprising a plurality of unit fermentation processes, wherein at least one of the unit processes comprises:

feeding a fermentation medium into a container containing a microorganism producing an organic compound using the fermentation medium, whereby the container contains a fermentation mixture comprising the microorganism, the medium and the organic compound produced by the microorganism,
taking a part of the fermentation mixture from the container;
separating the microorganism from the part of the fermentation mixture;
recycling the separated microorganism to the container;
collecting a filtrate;
and
wherein the medium fed into the container of each unit process comprises a filtrate collected from another unit process or a fresh fermentation medium.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method for manufacturing organic acid by high-efficiency continuous fermentation

Life of this patent

Method for manufacturing organic acid by high-efficiency continuous fermentation

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims24