Adeniyi A, Bello I, Mukaila T, Monono E, Hammed A. Developing rumen mimicry process for biological ammonia synthesis.
Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 2023:10.1007/s00449-023-02880-7. [PMID:
37166514 DOI:
10.1007/s00449-023-02880-7]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/03/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
The ruminant rumen houses hyper-ammonia-producing bacteria (HAB) that produce ammonia with minimal energy use. Here we developed a mimicry process to produce bio-ammonia, a solution of ammonia and ammonium. The rumen microbes were used to ferment soybean (SYB), soybean protein isolate (SPI), and pepsin-hydrolysate (HP) for bio-ammonia production. The maximum bio-ammonia produced from SYB, SPI, and HP were 0.65, 1.2, and 1.1 g/L, respectively. The presence of non-protein in SYB hindered bio-ammonia production and the processing of SYB to SPI and HP significantly (p < 0.05) increased bio-ammonia production. HP was converted to bio-ammonia quicker than SPI suggesting that enzymatic hydrolysis increases bioprocessing efficiency. Metagenomic analysis of a sample culture revealed that the HAB population is predominantly Klebsiella quasivariicola (73%), Escherichia coli (6%), and Enterobacter cloacae (6%). The bioprocessing steps developed would enable industrial ammonia production to achieve a low CO2 footprint.
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