Corn bran bioprocessing: Development of an integrated process for microbial lipids production

This study investigated the potential of corn bran as a feedstock for microbial lipid production using oleaginous yeast, Trichosporon oleaginosus ATCC20509. Different conditions (solid loading of biomass, acid loading, and pretreatment duration) were applied to optimize pretreatment processes using the Box-Behnken design. The highest sugar yield of 0.53g/g was obtained from corn bran hydrolysates at a pretreatment condition of 5% solid loading and 1% acid loading for 30min. Compared with synthetic media, up to 50% higher lipid accumulations in T. oleaginosus were achieved using corn bran hydrolysates during fermentation. Also, the direct effect of pretreatment condition on the lipid accumulation of T. oleaginosus was investigated using response surface methodology (RSM). Solid loading of biomass during the pretreatment process significantly affected the fermentation process for lipid accumulation of T. oleaginosus. The RSM model can provide useful information to design an integrated bioconversion platform.