Directing carbohydrates toward ethanol using mesophilic microbial communities

Bioethanol production is an established biotechnological process. Margins are low which prevent a larger scale production of bioethanol. As a large part of the production cost is due to the feedstock, the use of low value unsterile feedstocks fermented by microbial communities will enable a more cost-competitive bioethanol production. To...

On the ecology and applications of glucose and xylose fermentations

Microbial fermentations are a key process in naturally and man-made ecosystems. Microbial fermentations play a key role in creating and digesting our food and they are useful in designing bioprocesses that can produce biogas, biofuels, bioplastics, and many other functional molecules (Chapter 1). Furthermore, studying the competition and...

Selecting for lactic acid producing and utilising bacteria in anaerobic enrichment cultures

Lactic acid-producing bacteria are important in many fermentations, such as the production of biobased plastics. Insight in the competitive advantage of lactic acid bacteria over other fermentative bacteria in a mixed culture enables ecology-based process design and can aid the development of sustainable and energy-efficient bioprocesses....

The impact of mixtures of xylose and glucose on the microbial diversity and fermentative metabolism of sequencing-batch or continuous enrichment cultures

Efficient industrial fermentation of lignocellulosic waste containing a large part of glucose and xylose is desirable to implement a circular economy. Mixed culture biotechnologies can aid in realizing this goal. The effect of feeding equivalent substrates to a microbial community, such a xylose and glucose, is not well understood in terms of...

Diversity and metabolism of xylose and glucose fermenting microbial communities in sequencing batch or continuous culturing

A mechanistic understanding of microbial community establishment and product formation in open fermentative systems can aid the development of bioprocesses utilising organic waste. Kinetically, a single rate-limiting substrate is expected to result in one dominant species. Four enrichment cultures were operated to ferment either xylose or...

Role of nitrite in the competition between denitrification and DNRA in a chemostat enrichment culture

Denitrification and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) are two microbial processes that compete for oxidized nitrogen compounds in the environment. The objective of this work was to determine the role of nitrite versus nitrate as terminal electron acceptor on the competition between DNRA and denitrification. Initially, a mixed...