S50: Process development for the production of organic acids

Many organic acids are metabolites in the central metabolism and lend themselves to the fermentative production from renewable resources.  The acids can directly replace petrochemical precursors for the production of solvents, acidulents and polymerization partners, if their production can be achieved at competitive prices.  The production costs for such commodity chemicals are strongly driven by the fermentation performance factors of productivity, titer, and yield. 

MBI has developed fermentation processes for the production of the four-carbon dicarboxylic acids succinic and fumaric acid.  The succinic fermentation uses a proprietary organism that has several advantageous features for the production of succinic acid from a variety of renewable resources such as 5- and 6-carbon sugars and glycerol.  The organism, Actinobacillus succinogenes, is fully sequenced and the genomic factors that support its propensity for high-level succinic production will be outlined.  Strain and process improvements that affect the efficient carbon flux have been incorporated to achieve unsurpassed performance.  The use of the organism for the production of other organic acids will be outlined.  The novel process for the production of fumaric acid using a filamentous fungus benefits both the fermentative production and the recovery of fumaric acid.  The fermentation optimization was geared to identify process conditions that favor the production of fumaric acid over other organic acid by-products.