Literature Review 15 ___________________________________________________________________________ 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Acetic acid is an important raw material in the chemical industry. It is normally produced by chemical synthesis since the traditional vinegar fermentation process suffers from low product yield and high energy cost. However, the balance of economic advantage will not perpetually favor the petrochemical industry and the prospect of exhaustion of fossil fuel will soon or later force the use of fermentation process for renewable substrates as a route to useful chemicals. So, this literature review first documents the acetic acid historical background and its production processes with a short description of renewable substrates available for a homoacetogen fermentation. The ultimate requirement of organic compounds and the actual human trend for towards environment protection have triggered a renewed interest in the study of whey (or milk) permeate valorization by fermentation. Thus, the second purpose of this chapter is to show the potential use of milk permeate as a substrate for organic acids production due to its advantageous chemical composition. Significant advances have recently been made in the development of potential use of thermophilic clostridia for organic compounds production from renewable resources like corn ...
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