Acetic acid production using a fermentor equipped with a hollow fiber filter module

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Abstract
The continuous production of acetic acid by Acetobacter aceti M23 was carried out using a fermentor equipped with a hollow fiber filter module. The culture continued for 830 h with various dilution rates, which were changed stepwisely from low to high. The final cell concentration was 21.9 g dry cell/L and the maximum productivity of acetic acid was 12.7 g/L·h for the exit acetic acid concentration of about 50 g/L. The productivity was higher than any literature's values surveyed so far. The cell concentration was 62.8 times and the productivity was 4.6 times as high as those of the fermentor without the filter module. The productivity increased with the increase of dilution rate up to 0.3 h−1. It is interesting to note that the viable cell concentration was kept almost constant about 1.1 × 109 cells/ml in spite of the increase of dilution rate. Use of oxygen‐rich air was indispensable to establish the high productivity of acetic acid.