Immobilized fermentation has several advantages over traditional suspended fermentation, including simple and continuous operation, improved fermentation performance and reduced cost. Carrier is the most adjustable element among three elements of immobilized fermentation, including carrier, bacteria and environment. In this study, we characterized carrier roughness and surface properties of four types of natural fibres, including linen, cotton, bamboo fibre and silk, to assess their effects on cell immobilization, fermentation performance and stability. Linen with higher specific surface area and roughness could adsorb more bacteria during immobilized fermentation, thereby improving fermentation performance; thus, linen was selected as a suitable carrier and was applied for acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. To further improve fermentation performance, we also found that microbes of Clostridium acetobutylicum were negatively charged surfaces during fermentation. Therefore, we then modified linen with polyetherimide (PEI) and steric acid (SA) to increase surface positive charge and improve surface property. During ABE fermentation, the adhesion between modified linen and bacteria was increased, adsorption was increased about twofold compared with that of unmodified linen, and butanol productivity was increased 8.16% and 6.80% with PEI- and SA-modified linen as carriers respectively.
© 2017 The Authors. Microbial Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology.