Monday, July 30, 2007
P22

Microbial conversion of glycerol to promising chemicals

H. Habe, M. Konishi, T. Ikegami, K. Sakaki, and D. Kitamoto. Research Institute for Innovation in Sustainable Chemistry, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), AIST Central 5-2, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Glycerol is produced as a by-product of the oleochemical and biodiesel industries. Since glycerol production is expected to expand further with increasing the use of biodiesel, it will lead to much greater availability and lower price of glycerol. Efficient treatment of raw glycerol is thought to be one of key factors for biodiesel manufacturing process. As grycerol is a nontoxic, edible, biodegradable compounds and is mostly derived from natural sources, it will provide important environmental benefits to the new platform products. Conversion of glycerol with biotransformation means has been extensively studied and several possible products such as 1,3-propandiol (1,3-PD), ethanol, acetic acid, 2,3-butanediol, succinic acid, lactic acid, formic acid, hydrogen gas, 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde, lipid, and poly(hydroxyalkanoates) have been reported. However, except for 1,3-PD, there is no other promising chemicals for industrial use with high productivity. In this study, we screened microorganisms utilizing 170 g/l glycerol as carbon substrate. As a result, thirty five strains of glycerol-utilizing bacteria were newly isolated from soil samples, and the most isolates belonged to the phylum Enterobacteriaceae, including new species. We found that some strains formed the viscous compound inside the test tube during their growth. By gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, the viscous compound was determined to be a kind of monoglyceride.

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