Wei-Lun Chang and Shang-Tian Yang. Chemical and biomolecular engineering, The Ohio State University, 140 W. 19th Ave, Columbus, OH 43210
Biofuel is recently a very popular topic with the rising concern of energy crisis. Among several potential biofuel candidates, butanol can be a better choice with similar properties to automobile fuel. Butanol can be produced through fermentation by Clostridium beijerinckii that carries out acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. The production of butanol from ABE fermentation is limited by its toxicity to the bacteria and the high cost of downstream processing for separation of butanol from the cultured media. To optimize the productivity, fibrous bed bioreactors (FBB) are set up and fed with different medium that has compositions. FBB can increase butanol production with higher cell densities and help on-site adaptation of microbial tolerance to toxic butanol with multiple bioreactors connected in series. The kinetics of butanol fermentation in FBB is studied in media with different concentration of substrates. Based on experimental result, a computational model is set up for further optimization.