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Title: PRODUCTION OF BIOPOLYMERS AND BIOSURFACTANTS FROM SOYBEAN-DERIVED RENEWABLE FEEDSTOCKS

Author
item Solaiman, Daniel
item Ashby, Richard - Rick
item Foglia, Thomas
item Marmer, William
item Hotchkiss, Arland
item KOBAYASHI, HIDEYUKI - NATL FOOD RESEARCH INST

Submitted to: UJNR Food & Agricultural Panel Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/16/2005
Publication Date: 10/23/2005
Citation: Solaiman, D., Ashby, R.D., Foglia, T.A., Marmer, W.N., Hotchkiss, A.T., Kobayashi, H. 2005. Production of biopolymers and biosurfactants from soybean-derived renewable feedstocks. In: Proceedings of the US-Japan Cooperative Program in Natural Resources-Food & Agricultural Panel-34th Annual Meeting, October 23-29, 2005, Susono, Shizuoka. p. 187-191.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Biopolymers and biosurfactants are microbially produced substances with wide-ranging potential uses as plastics, adhesives, detergents, and antimicrobial agents. Various inexpensive or surplus coproduct streams derived from processing or utilization of soybean products, such as bio-glycerol and soy molasses, are attractive feedstocks for the fermentative production of microbial biopolymers and biosurfactants. In this paper, we describe our work that shows bio-glycerol and soy-molasses can be used to support microbial cell growth and production of the biomaterials. Using bio-glycerol as the sole carbon source, short-chain-length and medium-chain-length poly(hydroxyalkanoate) (PHA) were produced from Pseudomonas oleovorans B-14682 and P. corrugata 388, respectively, at 0.35 and 0.88 g/L of culture. A P. corrugata 388 recombinant strain containing an active truncated alpha-galactosidase gene was constructed to study PHA production from soy molasses. We also showed that bio-glycerol supported the production of mainly (75%) open-chain sophorolipids (SL) from Candida bombicola at a yield of 61 g product/L of culture, while soy molasses supported the synthesis of mainly lactone-form SL (97%) at 21 g/L culture. These results form the groundwork for our future efforts to optimize the production of PHA biopolymer and SL biosurfactant using the inexpensive bio-glycerol and soy molasses as feedstocks.