Acetone, butanol and ethanol production from domestic organic waste by solventogenic clostridia.

Abstract

Domestic organic waste (DOW) was washed and dried to 85 % dryness by VAM (The Netherlands). This material contained 25.1 g glucose, 8.4 g xylose and 5.8 g other monosaccharides/100 g dry matter. Using Mansonite steam explosion and enzymatic hydrolysis, a hydrolysate containing 15.4 g glucose, 2.2 g xylose and 0.8 g other monosaccharides per l was made. Clostridium acetobutylicum DSM 1731 produced 1.5 and C. beijerinckii B-592 0.9 g/l ABE and Clostridium LMD 84.48 1.9 g/l IBE, respectively, from this hydrolysate without further supplementation. Incubation with 2 fold concentrated hydrolysate completely impaired ABE production. After removal of unspecific inhibiting components, the yield of ABE production by Clostridium acetobutylicum DSM 1731 increased about 3 fold as compared to the nontreated hydrolysate. From 4 fold concentrated, partially purified, hydrolysate containing 34.2 g glucose/l, ABE production was 9.3 g/l after 120 h as compared to 3.2 g ABE/I from non-concentrated hydrolysate which contained 12.0 g glucose/l after elution over the same column. The concentration of butyric acid in the fermented hydrolysates was 2.2 and 0.4 g/l, respectively. This reasonably low amount of butyric acid showed that the fermentation had proceeded quite well.