NEW CELL RECYCLE ETHANOL FERMENTATION WITH PERIODIC CLEANING OF FILTER WITH GAS

High ethanol productivities were obtained by cell recycle cultures of yeast and bacterial strains at a dry cell concentration of 200 kg cells m-3 using a new membrane bioreactor system. The filtration rates of the cultures were stabilized by removing the microbial cake on the filter with periodic back flows of the fermentation gas through the filter. For instance, the filtration flux of 0.023 m3 m-2 h-1 was maintained for 30 h with the periodic cleaning of the filter, whereas it decreased at a half time of 2 h without the cleaning. Ethanol productivity, ethanol concentration and filtration flux attained were: 68.7 kg/(m3 . h), 62.7 kg/m3 and 0.029 m3 m-2 h-1 for Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, LAM1068, the respective values for Zymomonas mobilis, ZM4, were: 93.7, 33.5 and 0.074.