Tracing carbon monoxide uptake by Clostridium ljungdahlii during ethanol fermentation using (13)C-enrichment technique.

Conversion of synthesis gas (CO and H2) to ethanol can be an alternative, promising technology to produce biofuels from renewable biomass. To distinguish microbial utilization of carbon source between fructose and synthesis gas CO and to evaluate biological production of ethanol from CO, we adopted the (13)C-enrichment of the CO substrate and hypothesized that the residual increase in δ(13)C of the cell biomass would reflect the increased contribution of (13)C-enriched CO. Addition of synthesis gas to live culture medium for ethanol fermentation by Clostridum ljungdahlii increased the microbial growth and ethanol production. Despite the high (13)C-enrichment in CO (99 atom % (13)C), however, microbial δ(13)C increased relatively small compared to the microbial growth. The uptake efficiency of CO estimated using the isotope mass balance equation was also very low: 0.0014 % for the low CO and 0.0016 % for the high CO treatment. Furthermore, the fast production of ethanol in the early stage indicated that the presence of sugar in fermentation medium would limit the utilization of CO as a carbon source by C. ljungdahlii.