Nutritional and environmental factors in ethanol fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system, a basic study of the nutritional and environmental factors in ethanol fermentation was carried out to provide fundamental and practical bases for design of fermentation media and culture conditions. The requirements for all active medium components need to be determined in order to establish balanced media, which are important to reduce raw materials costs and to minimize inhibition from buildup of excess feed components in recycle processes with selective ethanol removal. Pulse injection of nutrients into continuous cultures was an effective method for screening active nutrients. In a systematic sensitivity analysis the effect of feed concentration of these individual nutrients was then determined and allowed formulation of media optimal with respect to the major fermentation parameters. Biotin, pantothenate, myo-inositol, potassium and phosphates appeared to stimulate growth preferentially to ethanol production. In contrast, thiamine and pyridoxine appeared to enhance specific ethanol productivity. The effect of ammonium sulfate depended on concentration. A conceptual model was proposed to relate the effects of these nutrients to biochemical pathways and functions. With these data and model the minimum cost combination of raw materials to achieve a medium of well defined components can be determined with a linear program.more » This computer program shows that many growth factors and minerals can be added to media more economically as pure components than as fractions of complex factors. 225 references, 61 figures, 54 tables.« less