Effects of potassium chloride on ethanol production by an osmotolerant mutant of Zymomonas mobilis

Abstract

The effect of increasing the KCl concentration in the culture medium of an alcoholic fermentation of glucose using the bacterium Zymomonas mobilis was investigated. Data obtained with the wild-type strain (ZM4, ATCC 31821) and with a newly isolated osmotolerant mutant (SBE15) were compared. It was observed that, at high salt concentration, inhibition of growth occured (specific growth rate and biomass yield) while ethanol production (specific ethanol productivity and ethanol yield) was unaffected. In contrast, the specific rate of in-vitro ethanol production, using either cell-free extract or washed cells, was strongly inhibited by increasing the KCl concentration in the incubation mixture. Therefore, it was concluded that the intracellular concentration of KCl was maintained below the inhibitory concentration by an active transport system. In addition, the fermentation performances of the osmotolerant mutant strain were higher than those of the parent strain at all the KCl concentrations tested, suggesting the utility of the former to run ethanolic fermentations in crude industrial media with a high salt content. Furthermore, the fermentation data on media containing added KCl agreed well with those obtained on molasses media, suggesting that the inhibition observed on these media was due to their high osmolality.