Open fermentative production of l-lactic acid with high optical purity by thermophilic Bacillus coagulans using excess sludge as nutrient

The development of a low-cost polymer-grade l-lactic acid production process was achieved in this study. Excess sludge hydrolyzate (ESH) was chosen as nutrient source for the objective of reducing nutrient cost in lactic acid production. 1% of ESH had high performance in lactic acid production relative to 2 g/l yeast extract (YE) while the production cost of ESH was much lower than that of YE, indicating ESH was a promising substitute of YE. By employing a thermophilic strain of Bacillus coagulans (NBRC 12583), non-sterilized batch and repeated batch l-lactic acid fermentation was successfully performed, and the optical purity of l-lactic acid accumulated was more than 99%. Moreover, the factors associated with cell growth and lactic acid fermentation was investigated through a two-stage lactic acid production strategy. Oxygen played an important role in cell growth, and the optimal condition for cell growth and fermentation was pH 7.0 and 50 °C.