High-efficient n-butanol production by co-culturing Clostridium acetobutylicum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae integrated with butyrate fermentative supernatant addition

Abstract

Butanol is not only an important chemical intermediate and solvent in pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, but also considered as an advanced biofuel. Although species of the natural host Clostridium have been engineered, butanol titers in the anaerobe seem to be limited by its intolerance to butanol less than 13g/L. Here we aimed to develop a technology for enhancing butanol production by a co-culture system with butyrate fermentative supernatant addition. First, when adding 4.0g/L butyrate into the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation broth with single-shot at 24h, the "acid crash" phenomenon occurred and the ABE fermentation performance deteriorated. Subsequently, we found that adding certain amino acids could effectively enhance butyrate re-assimilation, butanol tolerance and titer (from 11.1 to 14.8g/L). Additionally, in order to decrease the raw material cost, butyrate fermentative supernatant produced by Clostridium tyrobutyricum was applied to butanol production in the Clostridium acetobutylicum/Saccharomyces cerevisiae co-culture system, instead of adding synthetic butyrate. Final butanol and total ABE concentrations reached higher levels of 16.3 and 24.8g/L with increments of 46.8 and 37.8%, respectively. These results show that the proposed fermentation strategy has great potential for efficiently butanol production with an economic approach.