Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

The genre Azotobacter sp. represents a group of bacteria that can exert positive effects on the stimulation and plant growth promotion in multiples crops and additionally possess the capacity of asymbiotic nitrogen fixation. In the present work, the biomass production of two strains of A. chroococcum (named Ac1 and Ac10) using liquid fermentation for the further production of a biofertilizer was evaluated. For this, a liquid culture medium previously optimized (coded as MBR) was used for a liquid fermentation process in a Infors® model Minifors laboratory bioreactor with a capacity of 3.5 L initially a batch type strategy was applied for generate a baseline for this research. In order to increase process efficiency, the effect of reduce the stirring speed was evaluated; therefore, when a stirring speed of 200 rpm was evaluated while maintaining the air flow and the culture time under conditions of fed-batch type fermentation, an increase in the cell concentration was observed from 1.54E9 CFU/ml to 4.21E9 CFU/mL for Ac1 strain and increase of 2.21E9 CFU/ml to 3.92E9 CFU/ml for AC10 strain with a simultaneous reduction in energy consumption of 96.7%. Additionally, this increase in cell concentration for both strains also promote a rising of parameters of efficiency, biomass concentration and fermentation productivity about two times in comparison with the values determined at baseline.

Biography

Ginna Quiroga has completed her MSc in Advanced Microbiology from Barcelona University and BSc in Chemical Engineering from National University of Colombia. She is now a Professional Support at Bioproducts Pilot Plant of Corpoica since 2014.

Email: adiaz@corpoica.org.co