The production of ethanol via syngas fermentation obtained from lignocellulose gasification provides a method for completely utilizing all of the carbon content from lignocellulosic feedstock. The low mass transfer rate of less soluble CO and H2 gas to liquid has been considered a major bottleneck in the overall process; however, microporous membrane has been proposed as a gas diffuser to improve gas-to-liquid mass transfer. In this study, a liquid batch of syngas fermentation employing Clostridium ljungdahlii with continuous gas supply was obtained using the configuration of a bioreactor connected to microporous hydrophobic polypropylene hollow fiber membrane (HFM) as a gas diffuser. Liquid recirculation between the fermentation vessel and membrane module was applied to enhance the gas-liquid contact as well as cell-recycle. The fermentation performance with and without HFM was compared and evaluated by cell growth, CO utilization, ethanol yield, and productivity. A higher ethanol yield, 0.22 mol/mol, was achieved using the system of an HFM-supported bioreactor with a higher ethanol titer of 1.09 g/L and an ethanol-acetate molar ratio of 1.43 mol/mol. The obtained result demonstrates that an HFM-supported bioreactor is the best fermentation system compared to stirred tank reactor (STR) without a membrane.

Isoprene has the potential to replace some petroleum-based chemicals and can be produced through biological systems using renewable carbon sources. Ralstonia eutropha can produce value-added compounds, including intracellular polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) through fatty acid and lipid metabolism. In the present study, we engineered strains of R. eutropha H16 and examined the strains for isoprene production. We optimized codons of all the genes involved in isoprene synthesis by the mevalonate pathway and manipulated the promoter regions using pLac and pJ5 elements. Our results showed that isoprene productivity was higher using the J5 promoter (1.9 ± 0.24 µg/l) than when using the lac promoter (1.5 ± 0.2 µg/l). Additionally, the use of three J5 promoters was more efficient (3.8 ± 0.18 µg/l) for isoprene production than a one-promoter system, and could be scaled up to a 5-L batch-cultivation from a T-flask culture. Although the isoprene yield obtained in our study was insufficient to meet industrial demands, our study, for the first time, shows that R. eutropha can be modified for efficient isoprene production and lays the foundation for further optimization of the fermentation process.

Abstract. Bioconversion of C-1 carbon in syngas through microbial fermentation presents a huge potential to be further explored for ethanol production. Syngas can be obtained from the gasification of lignocellulosic biomass, by which most of carbon content of the biomass was converted into CO and CO2. These gases could be further utilized by carbon-fixing microorganism such as Clostridium sp. to produce ethanol as the end product. In order to obtain an optimum process, a robust and high performance strain is required and thus high ethanol yield as the main product can be expected. In this study, series of batch fermentation was carried out to select high performance strains for ethanol production. Bottle serum fermentations were performed using CO-gas as the sole carbon source to evaluate the potential of some Clostridia species such as Clostridium ljungdahlii, C. ragsdalei, and C. carboxidovorans in producing ethanol at various concentration of yeast extract as the organic nitrogen source, salt concentration, and buffer composition. Strain with the highest ethanol production in the optimum media will be further utilized in the upscale fermentation.

Microalgae are unicellular photosynthetic microorganisms, ubiquitous in nature which can be found in freshwater, seawater, hypersaline lakes, even in deserts and arctic ecosystems. Chlorella sp. is a eukaryotic, unicellular, photosynthetic organism with a spherical shape of about 1 to 20 μm in diameter. In this study, the combination of commonly used Walne medium and commercial fertilizers (ZA, TSP and Urea) were proposed as a low-cost approach for the cultivation of Chlorella sp. in the laboratory basis. The modified commercial fertilizer medium formulation consisted of the combination of at least 5% of Walne with different proportion of ZA, TSP and Urea. The result indicated that the combination of 5% (v/v) Walne and 95% (v/v) urea was able to retain the algal growth as compared to the combination of Urea, TSP and ZA. The obtained specific growth for 5% (v/v) Walne and 95% (v/v) urea modified medium was 0.246 d-1 and biomass productivity resulted 28 mg/L/d, which was comparable with commonly used Walne medium. Therefore, urea was primarily considered as the most suitable nitrogen source to support the growth of Chlorella sp. in the laboratory basis. Furthermore, modified commercial fertilizer medium developed in this study could potentially substitute the enriched medium used in the laboratory for the outdoor large-scale cultivation of microalgae.

Alkyl hydroperoxide reductase genes (ahpCF) from the soft coral associated Bacillus aquimaris MKSC6.2 have been isolated. The cloned 546 bp ahpC gene encodes a 181 amino acid residues polypeptide. The AhpC belongs to typical 2-Cys peroxiredoxin (Prx) containing conserved peroxidatic cysteine residue (C46 ) required for hydroperoxide reduction and conserved resolving cysteine (C166 ). The isolated 1530 bp ahpF gene encodes a polypeptide of 509 amino acid residues with two conserved C128 HNC131 and C337 PHC340 catalytic residues required for reduction of oxidized-AhpC during catalytic turnover. A survival study with Escherichia coli showed that overexpression of AhpC and AhpF resulted in a total protection against 0.16 mM t-butyl hydroperoxide.

Microalgae as a source of biodiesel precursor are promising by pointing out several advantages of its cultivation, such as able to be cultivated in non-arable land, high growth rate with high biomass yield, high lipid content, and renewable. Mass cultivation of microalgae requires large amount of nutrients which makes it economically impractical. To overcome this problem, an alternative medium which contains cheaper nutrients sources should be addressed. In this research, the growth and biomass productivity of Navicula sp. and Nannochloropsis sp. were compared in the commonly used F/2 medium and modified medium containing commercial NPK fertilizer. The results indicated that Navicula sp. and Nannochloropsis sp. can thrive in modified F/2-NPK medium under continuous illumination, while NPK-only medium didn’t show any significant increase in growth and biomass accumulation for both strains compared to initial cell inoculation. Cell optical density at 750 nm and biomass dry weight of 80% F/2 and 50% F/2 medium were comparable to that in F/2 control medium for both strains, indicating that Navicula sp. and Nannochloropsis sp. have a similar requirement for nutrients types. Furthermore, higher specific growth rate of Nannochloropsis sp. than Navicula sp. seen in both modified medium showed its favorable condition for growth.