Studies on Pathway of Producing Terephthalic Acid by Microorganism Coordinated Catalysis

A method was developed for the determination of terephthalic acid, p-tolualdehyde, p-methylbenzyl alcohol, and p-toluic acid by HPLC. Hypersil SAX column was used. The mobile phase was 2.5 M NH4H2PO4 containing 10% acetonitrile, and the pH was 4.32. The flow rate was 0.8 ml min−1, the temperature of column was 30 °C, and the detected wavelength was 254 nm. In this study, each component was completely separated and determined in 7 min. The recovery accorded with the detecting requirement. The method was used to analyze the main metabolites in the fermentation broth at different ferment times, which were produced at the process of biocatalysis producing terephthalic acid by Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Comamonas testosteroni. The metabolites in cell including organic acids, amino acids, fatty acids, and sugars were detected by GC-MS. According to the analytical results of HPLC and GC-MS, the pathway of producing terephthalic acid by Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Comamonas testosteroni coordinated catalysis was discussed.