Butanol production from lignocellulosic biomass: revisiting fermentation performance indicators with exploratory data analysis

Abstract

After just more than 100 years of history of industrial acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation, patented by Weizmann in the UK in 1915, butanol is again today considered a promising biofuel alternative based on several advantages compared to the more established biofuels ethanol and methanol. Large-scale fermentative production of butanol, however, still suffers from high substrate cost and low product titers and selectivity. There have been great advances the last decades to tackle these problems. However, understanding the fermentation process variables and their interconnectedness with a holistic view of the current scientific state-of-the-art is lacking to a great extent. To illustrate the benefits of such a comprehensive approach, we have developed a dataset by collecting data from 175 fermentations of lignocellulosic biomass and mixed sugars to produce butanol that reported during the past three decades of scientific literature and performed an exploratory data analysis to map current trends and bottlenecks. This review presents the results of this exploratory data analysis as well as main features of fermentative butanol production from lignocellulosic biomass with a focus on performance indicators as a useful tool to guide further research and development in the field towards more profitable butanol manufacturing for biofuel applications in the future. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-019-1508-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Consolidated bioprocessing performance of a two‐species microbial consortium for butanol production from lignocellulosic biomass

“…However, most solventogenic clostridia could not directly utilize lignocellulose (Wu, Zhang, Zhong, & Hu, 2017). Accordingly, lignocellulose could be hydrolyzed into fermentable sugars for butanol production through chemical and enzymatic pretreated methods (Birgen, Durre, Preisig, & Wentzel, 2019). While the generated inhibitors during the chemical pretreatment process would affect microbial growth.…”

Transient and Steady Pervaporation of 1-Butanol–Water Mixtures through a Poly[1-(Trimethylsilyl)-1-Propyne] (PTMSP) Membrane

“…After more than 100 years of history in industrial acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation, patented by Chaim Azriel Weizmann in 1915, 1-butanol is again considered a promising biofuel [1]. 1-butanol is a valuable solvent, energy carrier and chemical feedstock that is extensively used in various industries [1][2][3].…”

“…After more than 100 years of history in industrial acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation, patented by Chaim Azriel Weizmann in 1915, 1-butanol is again considered a promising biofuel [1]. 1-butanol is a valuable solvent, energy carrier and chemical feedstock that is extensively used in various industries [1][2][3]. This compound has been considered to be a useful partial replacement for automotive fossil fuels as it has a higher energy content, can be blended with gasoline to high concentrations and has a lower vapor pressure than ethanol, which is the far more commonly used renewable oxygenated blend with gasoline [2,[4][5][6][7].…”

Developing a Microbial Consortium for Enhanced Metabolite Production from Simulated Food Waste

“…An alternative to these practices is the anaerobic fermentation of food waste to commodity chemicals [1]. Anaerobic fermentation of a single carbon feedstock is frequently used in industrial-scale processes to produce biofuels [6] and commodity chemicals [7]. Significant challenges exist applying anaerobic fermentations to food waste breakdown, due to the complexity and inconsistency of the fermentation feedstock.…”