Enhanced Succinic Acid Production from Sake Lees Hydrolysate by Dilute Sulfuric Acid Pretreatment and Biotin Supplementation

Succinic acid is valued as a potential starting point for the production of chemicals of the C4 family or in the preparation of biodegradable polymers. For sustainable development in this era of petroleum shortage, production of succinic acid by microbial fermentation of renewable feedstock has attracted great interest. In this study, pretreatment with sulfuric acid and biotin supplementation were used to enhance succinic acid production by Actinobacillus succinogenes 130Z from sake lees, a byproduct of Japanese rice wine. Pretreatment with sulfuric acid resulted in little change of glucose, total nitrogen and succinic acid content in the sake lees hydrolysate but had a positive effect on succinic acid fermentation, which caused a 25.0% increase in succinic acid yield in batch fermentation. Biotin supplementation was used to further enhance the fermentability of sake lees hydrolysate. As a result, a 30 h batch fermentation of 0.5% sulfuric acid pretreated sake lees hydrolysate with 0.2 mg/L biotin gave a succinic acid yield of 0.59 g/g from 61.6 g/L of glucose, with a productivity of 1.21 g/(L·h). A 22.9% increase in succinic acid yield and a 101.7% increase in succinic acid productivity were obtained compared with untreated sake lees hydrolysate.