B. Olson, M. J. Johnson
Feb 1, 1948
Citations
0
Influential Citations
29
Citations
Journal
Journal of Bacteriology
Abstract
2,3-Butylene glycol is a fermentation product that can be obtained, in good yield, from a large variety of carbohydrate substrates. A study of the 2,3butylene glycol fermentation was made during the war because the glycol could serve as a starting material for the production of butadiene. This work has been presented in reports exchanged among laboratories engaged in butylene glycol research. The development of butylene glycol fermentation has been treated by Ledingham, Adams, and Stanier (1945). To bring their review of the literature to date it is necessary to add the work of Perlman (1944) on the production of glycol from wood sugar and the work of Ward, Pettijohn, Lockwood, and Coghill (1945) on the production of glycol from acid-hydrolyzed starch. The bacterial strain, Aerobacter aerogenes 199, used in all of the experiments was obtained from the Northern Regional Research Laboratory at Peoria, Illinois. The products that this organism produces vary widely with the conditions under which it is grown. An anaerobic fermentation of 100 millimoles of glucose by this organism yielded 42.4 mm of 2, 3-butylene glycol, 79 mm of ethyl alcohol, 1.5 mm of acetoin, 12.8 mM of acetic acid, 8.5 mm of formic acid, 16.8 mm of lactic acid, 7.4 mm of succinic acid, 139 mm of carbon dioxide, and 41.6 mm of hydrogen (Olson, 1945). Any variation of the fermentation conditions brings about a change in the amount of the individual products formed. Mickelson and Werkman (1938) using Aerobacter indologenes found that pH has a marked effect on the fermentation products. When the pH of the fermentation was maintained above 6.3, the result was an accumulation of acetic and formic acids, a decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide and hydrogen liberated, and a lowering of the yield of 2,3-butylene glycol and acetoin. Kluyver and Scheffer (1933) found that higher concentrations of carbohydrate could be fermented with a decreased fermentation time if air was passed through the medium. Under aerobic conditions there was a marked change in the product distribution from that of the anaerobic fermentation. Under optimum conditions 80 mm of 2,3-butylene glycol and 1.8 mM of acetoin are formed per 100 mm of glucose fermented. The ratio between the two varies