Continuous cultivation ofLactobacillus rhamnosus with cell recycling using an acoustic cell settler

Continuous production of lactic acid from glucose byLactobacillus rhamnosus with cell recycling using an acoustic cell settler was carried out. The performance of the system, such as the concentration of cell and product were compared with the control experiment without recycling. The acoustic settler showed cell separation efficiency of 67% during the continuous operation and the cell concentration in the fermentor with recycle exceeded that of the control by 29%. Compared with the control, lactic acid production was increased by 40%, while glucose consumption was only increased by 8%. The higher value of lactic acid production to substrate consumption (Y _P/S, product yield coefficient) achieved by cell recycling is interpreted to indicate that the recycled cell mass consumes less substrate to produce the same amount of product than the control. Within system environmental changes due to the longer mean cell residence time induced the cells maintaining the metabolic pathways to produce less by-product but more product, lactic acid.