Analysis of the kinetics of growth and lactic acid production for Lactobacillus helveticus growing on supplemented whey permeate

Growth of Lactobacillus helveticus on supplemented whey permeate was divided into five phases: lag, exponential, deceleration, stationary and decline phases. Each phase was characterized by simple model kinetics. From this and by considering a partial association of lactic acid production with growth, with an additional term introduced to account for cessation of production when the carbon substrate became limiting, the lactic acid production was analytically deduced for each growth phase. For both growth and production data, on the whole culture, the calculated values were found to match experimental data. All the model parameters can be easily deduced from experimental data. The model allows therefore a fine analysis of growth and production kinetics. (C) 2005 Society of Chemical Industry.