Insight into Biomass as a Renewable Carbon Source for the Production of Succinic Acid and the Factors Affecting the Metabolic Flux toward Higher Succinate Yield

The current world demand for succinic acid is around 30 000 tonnes per annum, which is forecast to expand 6-fold by 2015, owing to the introduction of biosuccinic acid. An insight into the practical usage of different biomass derivatives as substrates in the commercial bioproduction of succinic acid is discussed. Lignocellulosic crop stalk waste (corn straw, rice straw, and cotton straw) appears, in this case, to be the most promising form of biomass for commercial succinic acid fermentation. Another example of a low cost carbon source with high availability, crude glycerol, on the other hand, shows comparable potentials as a sustainable commercial carbon source for biosuccinic acid. In terms of the metabolic pathway of succinate-producing microbes, a greater availability of substrate CO2 and a lower oxidation/reduction potential (ORP) of the fermentation broth will trigger the microbial metabolic flux toward the generation of highly reduced metabolites (succinate) in order to regain an intracellular redox balance.