A method of achieving photosynthesis in a stainless steel fermentor

Abstract

,'iummury. A description of the cultivation of Rhodospirillum rubrum in 1,000 and 3,000 1. fermentors fitted with a special illnmination device, and a discussion of the results. IntroductionCurrent interest in microbial photosynthesis frequently causes a need for large quantities of cell material which can be used for chemical studies of the process. Many special devices have been described, particularly for mass culture of algae (Myers et aE.;1.6 Burlew;2 Gummert, Meffert and Stratmann;3 Tamiya et aZ.;4,798Krauss and Thomas;5 Kanazawa, Fujita, Yuhara and Sasa;g Enebo;lO Fogg, Smith and Millerll), but to our knowledge only Preuss et a1.12 have used ordinary closed fermentors for photosynthesis work. They illuminated the culture through a window on the tank, a method which, however, has some drawbacks. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the use of a lamp inside a fermentor where the culture is given a large surface in a vortex formed by a bottom stirrer (cf. Chain et a1.13). The technique has been worked out for Rhodospirillum rubrum, but we feel that the ease with which an ordinary fermentor is adapted to photosynthesis might provide useful knowledge also for those working with other types of microbial photosynthesis. Background to the Experiments on R . rubrum