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Rhamnolipid production, characterization and fermentation scale-up by Pseudomonas aeruginosa with plant oils

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Abstract

Objectives

To be competitive with common chemical surfactants, the cost of rhamnolipid production must be minimized by selecting suitable substrates and optimizing the fermentation process.

Results

With different plant oils as substrates, Pseudomonas aeruginosa TIB-R02 can produce rhamnolipids with different structural characteristics that were confirmed by HPLC/MS analysis. Different rhamnolipids had different performances in interfacial tension. The production of rhamnolipid was greatly enhanced by fermentation optimization with palm oil as substrate. A fermentation-defoaming tandem system was developed to resolve the problems of foaming and medium overflow during scale-up. Finally, the titer of rhamnolipid reached 60 g/l and the yield reached 80 % in a 300 l fermentation-defoaming tandem system.

Conclusions

The work reveals the potential for producing high-performance rhamnolipids from renewable resources on a large scale.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program 2014AA022104) and Industrial Biotechnology Program of Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Commission (12ZCZDSY13000).

Supporting information

Supplementary Figure 1—Base peak ion intensity chromatograms of rhamnolipids from various sources.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Systems Microbial Biotechnology, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 32 XiQiDao, Tianjin Airport Economic Area, Tianjin, 300308, China

    Zhijin Gong, Yanfeng Peng & Qinhong Wang

  2. College of Biotechnology, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin, 300457, China

    Zhijin Gong

Authors
  1. Zhijin Gong
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  2. Yanfeng Peng
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  3. Qinhong Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yanfeng Peng.

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Gong, Z., Peng, Y. & Wang, Q. Rhamnolipid production, characterization and fermentation scale-up by Pseudomonas aeruginosa with plant oils. Biotechnol Lett 37, 2033–2038 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1885-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1885-2

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