Fermentation of D-glucose and D-xylose mixtures by Candida tropicalis NBRC 0618 for xylitol production

The fermentation of D-glucose and D-xylose mixtures by the yeast Candida tropicalis NBRC 0618 has been studied under the most favourable operation conditions for the culture, determining the most adequate initial proportion in these sugars for xylitol production. In all the experiments a synthetic culture medium was used, with an initial total substrate concentration of 25 g L-1, a constant pH of 5.0 and a temperature of 30 degrees C. From the experimental results, it was deduced that the highest values of specific rates of production and of overall yield in xylitol were achieved for the mixtures with the highest percentage of D-xylose, specifically in the culture with the initial D-glucose and D-xylose concentrations of 1 and 24 g L-1, respectively, with an overall xylitol yield of 0.28 g g(-1). In addition, the specific rates of xylitol production declined over the time course of the culture and the formation of this bioproduct was favoured by the presence of small quantities of D-glucose. The sum of the overall yield values in xylitol and ethanol for all the experiments ranged from 0.26 to 0.56 g bioproduct/g total substrate.