Carbonized biomass as an immobilization carrier in acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation by Clostridium beijerinckii JCM 8026

Abstract

ABE fermentation has been used to produce biobutanol for a long period of time. The main obstacles consisted of low productivity and cell viability. In this work, the immobilization technique was applied to improve cell culture over the free cell fermentation. Three types of carbonized biomass, cassava rhizome charcoal (CRC), bamboo charcoal (BC), and coconut shell activated carbon (CSAC), were selected and used as carriers for the immobilization of Clostridium beijerinckii JCM 8026. They were characterized by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis, zeta potential, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to expose their surface and chemical properties. The results pointed out that the immobilized cell onto BC can produce butanol higher than the free cell while lessened by 8.7% and 19.7% in CRC and CSAC, respectively. However, CRC showed the highest cell efficiency after eight sequential reuse cycles. The improvement in butanol production is due to the surface area and the pore size of each of the carbonized materials. This work revealed the potential of carbonized biomass as a carrier, which can result in repeated inoculum and improved cell viability. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.