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Biomethanol Production from Methane by Immobilized Co-cultures of Methanotrophs

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Abstract

Methanol production by co-culture of methanotrophs Methylocystis bryophila and Methyloferula stellata was examined from methane, a greenhouse gas. Co-culture exhibited higher methanol yield of 4.72 mM at optimum ratio of M. bryophila and M. stellata (3:2) compared to individual cultures. The immobilized co-culture within polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) showed relative efficiency of 90.1% for methanol production at polymer concentration of 10% (v/v). The immobilized co-culture cells within PVA resulted in higher bioprocess stability over free cells at different pH, and temperatures. Free and encapsulated co-cultures showed maximum methanol production of 4.81 and 5.37 mM under optimum conditions, respectively. After five cycles of reusage under batch conditions, free and encapsulated co-cultures retained methanol production efficiency of 23.8 and 61.9%, respectively. The present investigation successfully revealed the useful influence of co-culture on the methanol production over pure culture. Further, encapsulation within the polymeric matrix proved to be a better approach for the enhanced stability of the bioprocess.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Brain Pool grant (NRF-2019H1D3A201060226) by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) to work at Konkuk University. This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (NRF-2020H1D3A2A01060467, NRF-2019R1C1C11009766). This work was also supported by KU Research Professor program of Konkuk University. This paper was supported by Konkuk University Researcher Fund in 2018.

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  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea

    Sanjay K. S. Patel, Rahul K. Gupta, Virendra Kumar, Sanath Kondaveeti, Anurag Kumar, Devashish Das, Vipin Chandra Kalia & Jung-Kul Lee

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Patel, S.K.S., Gupta, R.K., Kumar, V. et al. Biomethanol Production from Methane by Immobilized Co-cultures of Methanotrophs. Indian J Microbiol 60, 318–324 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12088-020-00883-6

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