Oil production on wastewaters after butanol fermentation by oleaginous yeast Trichosporon coremiiforme

From the distillation process after butanol fermentation, wastewaters mainly consisted of organic acids and residual sugars and with high COD (usually >20,000 mg/L) are generated. Without any pretreatment and adding other nutrients (nitrogen sources and trace elements), these wastewaters were used as substrate for microbial oil production by oleaginous yeast Trichosporon coremiiforme. After 5 days' lipid fermentation, all the sugars and organic acids measured were totally utilized by T. coremiiforme and a 68% of COD degradation could be obtained. The highest biomass and lipid content of T. coremiiforme on the wastewaters were 5.8 g/L and 19.1%, respectively. This work shows that T. coremiiforme is a promising strain for microbial oil production on the wastewaters after butanol fermentation. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.