Co-fermentation of a mixture of glucose and xylose to fumaric acid by Rhizopus arrhizus RH 7-13-9#

Lignocellulose is the most abundant biomass, composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. It can be converted into glucose and xylose, which could be utilized as carbon source to produce fumaric acid. But glucose and xylose were commonly used separately to produce fumaric acid, while the co-fermentation of glucose and xylose process was not studied so far. In this work, the co-fermentation process was researched through a new strain R. arrhizus RH 7-13-9# isolated from high concentration xylose. It was firstly proven to utilize glucose efficiently and 37.52 g/L fumaric acid was obtained from 80 g/L glucose. Furthermore, the effect of different ratios of glucose/xylose and carbon/nitrogen in the co-fermentation process was investigated and the best ratios were 75/25 (w/w) and 800/1 (w/w), where the yield of fumaric acid reached 46.78 g/L.