Introductory Remarks

Over the past 30+ years at the Ohio State University, my research group has developed several bioprocesses for production of bio-based carboxylic acids, including short-chain fatty acids such as acetic acid, propionic acid, and butyric acid, and dicarboxylic acids such as malic acid and fumaric acid. These carboxylic acids are important specialty chemicals with wide applications in food, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. In this talk, I’ll introduce some of our technologies in engineering bacterial and fungal cells for the biosyntheses of these organic acids and novel bioreactors such as the fibrous-bed bioreactor (FBB) and fermentation processes integrating with in-situ product recovery for their economical production at an industrial scale.