UT SCIENTISTS INVENT FAST AND EFFECTIVE METHOD FOR FERMENTING LACTIC ACID
26.10.2007
The University has filed an international patent application on behalf of the research group of Environmental Technology of the UT Institute of Technology. The group consists of Eerik Jõgi, Allan Nurk, Karin Kask, Tiina Michelson and Mari-Liis Ots and the application is entitled ‘Method for obtaining endospores of sporogenous fermentable thermophilic strains of microorganism and use of the obtained endospores to inoculate fermentation’.
The invention is based on the ability of thermophilic and lactic acid fermenting representatives of the bacterium family Bacillus to form spores (endospores), i.e. dormant cells that are highly resistant to extreme environmental conditions such as high temperatures, acidic and alkaline environments, etc. Dormant cells can retain the ability to germinate for many years.
One of the authors of the invention, Dr. Allan Nurk, Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Technology Development Centre of UT, explained that the most labour-consuming and skill-intensive job in a typical microbiological production process is preparing the inoculation of microbes. “It consists of cultivating successive cultures on an increasing scale with the aim of obtaining an amount of rapidly multiplying vegetative bacterial cells that is sufficient for inoculation. The novelty of our method lies in the fact that certain conditioning allows us to produce spores of Bacillus sp. and, using these spores later for inoculation, to achieve efficiencies in the lactic acid production process that are on a par with or even beat the traditional inoculation,“ Dr. Nurk said.
According to him, the main economic argument for patenting the method consists in the realization that the preparation of a fermentation culture in the form of spores permits to separate expert microbiological work from the production process both in time and in space. Thus, spores could be produced in Europe but used to ferment lactic acid in the agricultural areas of China or India.
“Figuratively speaking, what we are dealing with here can be likened to two different approaches to sweetening your coffee: one consists in ripping a sugar beet directly from the soil and starting to refine it so as to obtain sugar (this would be the traditional inoculation method), or dipping a teaspoon into the sugarbowl for a spoonful of ready-made sugar (the use of spores for inoculation),“ illustrated Eerik Jõgi, Research Fellow in Environmental Technology, one of the authors of the invention.
The invention is primarily intended for industrial raw material production. Lactic acid as a primary substrate for synthesizing a number of complex substances is a valuable commodity for chemical industry. In principle, the method can also be applied in food industry, yet the invention is primarily targeted to large-scale chemical production operations.
Additional information: Mr Hardo Lilleväli, Biotechnology Expert for UT Institute of Technology, phone +372 737 4803
Anneli Maaring
UT Press Representative
phone +372 737 5683; +372 515 0184
anneli [dot] maaring [ät] ut [dot] ee
/64160
The invention is based on the ability of thermophilic and lactic acid fermenting representatives of the bacterium family Bacillus to form spores (endospores), i.e. dormant cells that are highly resistant to extreme environmental conditions such as high temperatures, acidic and alkaline environments, etc. Dormant cells can retain the ability to germinate for many years.
One of the authors of the invention, Dr. Allan Nurk, Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Technology Development Centre of UT, explained that the most labour-consuming and skill-intensive job in a typical microbiological production process is preparing the inoculation of microbes. “It consists of cultivating successive cultures on an increasing scale with the aim of obtaining an amount of rapidly multiplying vegetative bacterial cells that is sufficient for inoculation. The novelty of our method lies in the fact that certain conditioning allows us to produce spores of Bacillus sp. and, using these spores later for inoculation, to achieve efficiencies in the lactic acid production process that are on a par with or even beat the traditional inoculation,“ Dr. Nurk said.
According to him, the main economic argument for patenting the method consists in the realization that the preparation of a fermentation culture in the form of spores permits to separate expert microbiological work from the production process both in time and in space. Thus, spores could be produced in Europe but used to ferment lactic acid in the agricultural areas of China or India.
“Figuratively speaking, what we are dealing with here can be likened to two different approaches to sweetening your coffee: one consists in ripping a sugar beet directly from the soil and starting to refine it so as to obtain sugar (this would be the traditional inoculation method), or dipping a teaspoon into the sugarbowl for a spoonful of ready-made sugar (the use of spores for inoculation),“ illustrated Eerik Jõgi, Research Fellow in Environmental Technology, one of the authors of the invention.
The invention is primarily intended for industrial raw material production. Lactic acid as a primary substrate for synthesizing a number of complex substances is a valuable commodity for chemical industry. In principle, the method can also be applied in food industry, yet the invention is primarily targeted to large-scale chemical production operations.
Additional information: Mr Hardo Lilleväli, Biotechnology Expert for UT Institute of Technology, phone +372 737 4803
Anneli Maaring
UT Press Representative
phone +372 737 5683; +372 515 0184
anneli [dot] maaring [ät] ut [dot] ee
/64160