New coculture system of Clostridium spp. and Megasphaera hexanoica using submerged hollow-fiber membrane bioreactors for caproic acid production

Abstract

In this study, a coculture bioprocess was developed with Clostridium strains producing butyric acid and Megasphaera hexanoica producing caproic acid from the butyric acid. The two bacterial strains were each cultivated in two submerged hollow-fiber membrane bioreactors (s-HF/MBRs), separately. Each fermentation broth was filtered through the membrane modules, and the filtered broth was either interchanged on another reactor or obtained sequentially through. Using s-HF/MBRs, the caproic acid concentration increased to 10.08 g L-1, with the fastest productivity of 0.69 g L-1 h(-1), which higher than that previously reported.