Enzymatic Fractionation of SAA-Pretreated Barley Straw for Production of Fuel Ethanol and Astaxanthin as a Value-Added Co-Product

Microbial Astaxanthin Production from Agro-Industrial Wastes—Raw Materials, Processes, and Quality

The antioxidant and food pigment astaxanthin (AX) can be produced by several microorganisms, in auto- or heterotrophic conditions. Regardless of the organism, AX concentrations in culture media are low, typically about 10–40 mg/L. Therefore, large amounts of nutrients and water are necessary to prepare culture media. Using low-cost substrates such as agro-industrial solid and liquid wastes is desirable for cost reduction. This opens up the opportunity of coupling AX production to other existing processes, taking advantage of available residues or co-products in a biorefinery approach. Indeed, the scientific literature shows that many attempts are being made to produce AX from residues. However, this brings challenges regarding raw material variability, process conditions, product titers, and downstream processing. This text overviews nutritional requirements and suitable culture media for producing AX-rich biomass: production and productivity ranges, residue pretreatment, and how the selected microorganism and culture media combinations affect further biomass production and quality. State-of-the-art technology indicates that, while H. pluvialis will remain an important source of AX, X. dendrorhous may be used in novel processes using residues.

Integrated biorefinery approaches for the industrialization of cellulosic ethanol fuel

Lignocellulosic biomass is an abundant and sustainable raw material, but its conversion into ethanol fuel has not yet achieved large-scale industrialization and economic benefits. Integrated biorefineries have been widely identified as the key to achieving this goal. Here, four promising routes were summarized to assemble the new industrial plants for cellulose-based fuels and chemicals, including 1) integration of cellulase production systems into current cellulosic ethanol processes; 2) combination of processes and facilities between cellulosic ethanol and first-generation ethanol; 3) application of enzyme-free saccharification processes and computational approaches to increase the bioethanol yield and optimize the integration process; 4) production of multiple products to maximize the value derived from the lignocellulosic biomass. Finally, the remaining challenges and perspectives of this field are also discussed.

Measuring Biomass-Derived Products in Biological Conversion and Metabolic Process

Biomass can be converted to various types of products in biological and metabolic processes. For an in-depth understanding of biomass conversion, quantitative and qualitative information of products in these conversion processes are essential. Here we introduce analytical techniques including high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for biomass-based products characterization in biological and metabolic processes.

Pretreatment of Corn Stover by Low Moisture Anhydrous Ammonia (LMAA) in a Pilot-Scale Reactor and Bioconversion to Fuel Ethanol and Industrial Chemicals

Corn stover (CS) adjusted to 50, 66, and 70 % moisture was pretreated by the low moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) process in a pilot-scale ammoniation reactor. After ammoniation, the 70 % moisture CS was treated at 90 and 100 °C whereas the others were treated at 90 °C only. The 70 % moisture pretreated CS then was subjected to a storage study under non-sterile conditions for 3 months. It was found that storage time did not have significant effects on the compositions of the pretreated materials and their hydrolysis by commercial enzymes. The 70 % moisture CS treated at 90 °C was used for preparation of a mix sugar hydrolysate (MSH) using combination of cellulase and xylanase. The MSH was used to prepare a corn mash at 9.5 wt% solid then subjected to ethanol fermentation by Escherichia coli KO11. The 66 % moisture CS treated at 90 °C was hydrolyzed with xylanase to make a xylose-rich hydrolysate (XRH), which was subsequently used for butyric acid fermentation by Clostridium tyrobutyricum. The resultant cellulose-enriched residue was hydrolyzed with cellulase to make a glucose-rich hydrolysate (GRH), which was subsequently used for succinic acid fermentation by E. coli AFP184.

Evaluation and screening of efficient promoters to improve astaxanthin production in Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous

Astaxanthin is a valuable carotenoid that is widely used in the aquaculture, food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous is a carotenoid-synthesizing yeast strain that produces astaxanthin as its main pigment. Although metabolic engineering using gene manipulation is a valuable way to improve astaxanthin production, a gene expression system for X. dendrorhous has been poorly developed. In this study, three known promoters of X. dendrorhous, glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gpd) promoter (Pgpd), glucose dehydrogenase (gdh) promoter (Pgdh), and actin (act) promoter (Pact), were evaluated for use in the overexpression of target proteins using green fluorescence protein (GFP) as an expression level indicator protein. The actin promoter, Pact, showed the highest expression level of GFP when compared with Pgpd and Pgdh. Additionally, to obtain new promoters for higher expression of target protein in X. dendrorhous, intracellular GFP intensity was evaluated for 13 candidate promoters. An alcohol dehydrogenase promoter, Padh4, showed more efficient expression of GFP rather than Pact. Overexpression of crtE gene encoding rate-limiting enzyme of carotenoid synthesis under the adh4 promoter yielded an increase in intracellular astaxanthin content of about 1.7-fold compared with the control strain. The promoters identified in this study must be useful for improving carotenoids production in X. dendrorhous.