Studies on lipid production by Rhodotorula glutinis fermentation using monosodium glutamate wastewater as culture medium

Microbial lipid, as a raw material for biodiesel, can be produced by Rhodotorula glutinis with the monosodium glutamate (MSG) wastewater. The effect of adding glucose to MSG wastewater on lipid production was studied in this paper. Three different strategics, including initial addition, fed-batch addition and glucose feedback addition were attempted. The results show that addition of glucose was found favorable not only for cell growth but also for lipid synthesis. Of the three adding methods glucose feedback addition was the most effective one: about 25 g/L of biomass, 20% of lipid content and 45% of COD degradation were obtained respectively. And the components of the resulted lipid using different addition strategies were further studied. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.