Evaluation of co-immobilized Lactobacillus delbrueckii with porous particles for lactic acid production

Lactic acid production using co-immobilized L. delbrueckii with porous particles has been studied. The effect of co-immobilization with porous particles was verified by measuring the variations of both overall production rate of lactic acid and effective diffusion coefficient in the co-immobilized gel. The effective diffusion coefficient decreased with increasing cell concentration in the co-immobilized gel. However, in the high cell density regimes, the effective diffusion coefficient in co-immobilized gel was higher than that without co-immobilized porous particles. The optimal volume fraction of porous particles in the co-immobilizing gel beads was estimated experimentally at about 10%(v/v). An approximately 30% increase of the overall production rate was obtained compared to the control culture. Mathematical analysis showed that by co-immobilizing cells with porous particles, the steady-state concentration profiles of proton and undissociated lactic acid changed favorably inside the gel beads. The result indicates that co-immobilization with porous particles is a useful method to improve fermentation efficiency in processes using immobilized cells.