Chapter 18 - Sustainable production of succinic acid by utilization of agricultural wastes

Abstract

The rapid depletion of fossil fuels has led to increasing demand for alternative and environment-friendly sources to meet the growing population’s energy needs. Renewable feedstock can be used as a source for producing chemicals; such chemicals are called platform chemicals, as they can produce derivative chemicals. These platform chemicals are capable of replacing petrochemicals to make the biorefineries more economical and can be exploited for larger-scale production along with the environment-friendly alternative. Agro-industrial waste has an extensive potential to be used as feedstock for the production of biofuels and other value-added products. Succinic acid is one of the top valued platform chemicals that has several commercial applications. In this review, we aim to discuss the various organisms, which are natural producers of succinic acid, sources of biomass used as raw material, and use of metabolic engineering and other environments safer methods of enhancing the production of bio-succinic acid. This review also emphasizes the limitations of the present methods and future research directions in the field.