History of investigation and prospects for application of acetone – butyl fermentation: to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ch. Weizmann, scientist, politician, native of Belarus
Keywords:
Ch. Weizmann, acetone – butyl fermentation, butanolAbstract
Ch. Weizmann is a scientist and statesman whose homeland is the territory that currently belongs to the Belarus. He went down in the history of world biotechnology by introducing the process of acetone – butyl fermentation into industrial production. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was the largest biotechnological process, second in volume only to ethanol production. One of the products of acetone – butyl fermentation is butanol, which can serve as an alternative, renewable source of energy. The competitiveness of microbiological production of butanol depends on world oil prices and the improvement of the processes for its production.
References
- Adams MR. The birth of modern industrial microbiology: the acetone – butanol fermentation. The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology. 2017;87(1):81–95. DOI: 10.1080/17581206.2017.1329970.
- Kauffman GB, Mayo I. Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952): chemist, biotechnologist, and statesman. The fateful interweaving of political conviction and scientific talent. Journal of Chemical Education. 1994;71(3):209–214. DOI: 10.1021/ed071p209.
- Jones DT, Woods DR. Acetone – butanol fermentation revisited. Microbiological Reviews. 1986;50(4):484–524. DOI: 10.1128/ MMBR.50.4.484-524.1986.
- Bunch AW. How biotechnology helped maintain the supply of acetone for the manufacture of cordite during World War I. The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology. 2014;84(2):211–226. DOI: 10.1179/1758120614Z.00000000043.
- Sauer M. Industrial production of acetone and butanol by fermentation – 100 years later. FEMS Microbiology Letters. 2016;363(13):fnw134. DOI: 10.1093/femsle/fnw134.
- Green EM. Fermentative production of butanol – the industrial perspective. Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 2011;22(3):337–343. DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2011.02.004.
- Janssen H, Wang Y, Blaschek HP. Clostridium acetobutylicum. In: Batt CA, Tortorello ML, editors. Encyclopedia of food microbiology. Volume 1. 2nd edition. Amsterdam: Academic Press; 2014. p. 449–457. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-384730-0.00070-7.
- Ni Y, Sun Z. Recent progress on industrial fermentative production of acetone – butanol – ethanol by Clostridium acetobutylicum in China. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2009;83(3):415–423. DOI: 10.1007/s00253-009-2003-y.
- Zverlov VV, Berezina O, Velikodvorskaya GA, Schwarz WH. Bacterial acetone and butanol production by industrial fermentation in the Soviet Union: use of hydrolyzed agricultural waste for biorefinery. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2006;71(5):587–597. DOI: 10.1007/s00253-006-0445-z.
- Dürre P. Biobutanol: an attractive biofuel. Biotechnology Journal. 2007;2(12):1525–1534. DOI: 10.1002/biot.200700168.
- Lee SY, Park JH, Jang SH, Nielsen LK, Kim J, Jung KS. Fermentative butanol production by clostridia. Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 2008;101(2):209–228. DOI: 10.1002/bit.22003.
- Болотник ЕВ, Литвинович НЕ, Коломиец ЭИ. Ацетоно-бутиловое брожение как основа получения нового вида топлива из возобновляемого сырья. В: Коломиец ЭИ, Лобанок АГ, Ившина ИБ, Зинченко АИ, Галушко ВМ, Михайлова РВ и др., редакторы. Микробные биотехнологии: фундаментальные и прикладные аспекты. Том 5. Минск: Беларуская навука; 2013. с. 411–429.
- Moon HG, Jang Y-S, Cho C, Lee J, Binkley R, Lee SY. One hundred years of clostridial butanol fermentation. FEMS Microbiology Letters. 2016;363(3):fnw001. DOI: 10.1093/femsle/fnw001.
- Xue C, Zhao J, Chen L, Yang S-T, Bai F. Recent advances and state-of-the-art strategies in strain and process engineering for biobutanol production by Clostridium acetobutylicum. Biotechnology Advances. 2017;35(2):310–322. DOI: 10.1016/j.biotechadv. 2017.01.007.
- Lin Z, Cong W, Zhang J. Biobutanol production from acetone – butanol – ethanol fermentation: developments and prospects. Fermentation. 2023;9(9):847. DOI: 10.3390/fermentation9090847.
- Lee J, Jang Y-S, Choi SJ, Im JA, Song H, Cho JH, et al. Metabolic engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 for isopropanol – butanol – ethanol fermentation. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2012;78(5):1416–1423. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.06382-11.
- Hussain A, Liao H, Ahmad K, Ahsan M, Hussain MI, Iqbal MW, et al. Bacterial metabolic engineering for the production of second-generation (2G) bioethanol and biobutanol: a review. Journal of Applied Microbiology. 2023;134(2):lxac061. DOI: 10.1093/ jambio/lxac061.
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:
- The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
- The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
- The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)










