Conversion of Sugars to 1,2-Propanediol by Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum HG-8

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore a fermentation route for the production of 1,2-propanediol (1,2-PD) from renewable sugars: lactose found in cheese whey, and D-glucose, D-galactose, L-arabinose, and D-xylose found in corn and wood byproducts. Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum, a naturally occurring organism, was found to ferment a wider range of sugars to 1,2-PD than previously reported. The specific sugar had a significant effect on the selectivity for 1,2-PD vs other fermentation products such as ethanol, D- and L-lactate, and acetate. T. thermosaccharolyticum potentially provides an environmentally friendly route to a major commodity chemical now made from petrochemicals.

Microbial production and applications of 1,2-propanediol

“…Cameron et al investigated the production of 1,2-propanediol from T. thermosaccharolyticum from various substrates such as arabinose and galactose resulted in 4.29 and 3.56 g/l of 1,2-propanediol, respectively [5]. Altaras and co-workers in 2001 investigated the fermentation of the various sugars known to be present in cellulosic biomass [23]. Fermentation of arabinose and glucose produced 0.13 and 0.11 g of 1,2-propanediol per gram of glucose.…”

“…Methylglyoxal pathway is found in T. thermosaccrolyticum [23], C. sphenoides [20] and S. cerevisiae [35,36]. These organisms are reported to ferment common sugars such as glucose, fructose, mannose, galactose, xylose, arabinose, lactose and cellobiose [21,23].…”

“…These organisms are reported to ferment common sugars such as glucose, fructose, mannose, galactose, xylose, arabinose, lactose and cellobiose [21,23]. T. thermosaccrolyticum can produce enantiomerically pure (R)-1,2-propanediol which can be used for most of the applications of the racemic mixture and has additional application as a chiral synthon in organic synthesis [21,37].…”

“…In order to increase the substrate spectrum, T. thermosaccharolyticum was grown in presence of simple and complex sugars. In this context, whey permeate was found to be a potential complex sugar, however, it often needed to be supplemented with trace minerals and ammonium sulfate [23].…”

“…The aim of this project was the production of propylene glycol out of glycerol from the biodiesel industry at a factory in Europe with an initial capital investment of $80-100 million and a capacity of 65,000 tone/year [2]. Cargill has already presented a process to obtain 1,2-propanediol out of carbohydrates with E. coli or T. thermosaccharolyticum HG-8 [7,23].…”