The present invention relates to a process for the production of an organic acid from a lignocellulosic feedstock. The process is integrated with a pulp mill and comprises the steps: a) providing a lignocellulosic feedstock; b) obtaining an alkaline liquor from the pulp mill; c) pre-treating the lignocellulosic feedstock with the alkaline liquor, thereby obtaining a pretreated cellulosic feed and a black liquor; d) obtaining calcium oxide from the pulp mill; e) subjecting the pretreated cellulosic feed from step c) to enzymatic hydrolysis, thereby obtaining a saccharide feed; f) subjecting the saccharide feed from step e) to microbial fermentation using the calcium oxide from step d) as a neutralising agent, thereby obtaining an organic acid calcium salt; g) treating the organic acid calcium salt with sulfuric acid, thereby obtaining gypsum and the organic acid; h) optionally isolating lignin from the black liquor obtained in step c), thereby obtaining lignin and weak black liquor; and i) returning the black liquor obtained in step c) and/or the weak black liquor obtained in step h) to the pulp mill for integration with the pulp mill chemical recovery process; wherein steps e) and f) are performed either sequentially or simultaneously.

The present invention relates to a process for the production of an organic acid from a lignocellulosic feedstock. The process is integrated with a pulp mill and comprises the steps: a) providing a lignocellulosic feedstock; b) obtaining an alkaline liquor from the pulp mill; c) pre-treating the lignocellulosic feedstock with the alkaline liquor, thereby obtaining a pretreated cellulosic feed and a black liquor; d) obtaining calcium oxide from the pulp mill; e) subjecting the pretreated cellulosic feed from step c) to enzymatic hydrolysis, thereby obtaining a saccharide feed; f) subjecting the saccharide feed from step e) to microbial fermentation using the calcium oxide from step d) as a neutralising agent, thereby obtaining an organic acid calcium salt; g) treating the organic acid calcium salt with sulfuric acid, thereby obtaining gypsum and the organic acid; h) optionally isolating lignin from the black liquor obtained in step c), thereby obtaining lignin and weak black liquor; and i) returning the black liquor obtained in step c) and/or the weak black liquor obtained in step h) to the pulp mill for integration with the pulp mill chemical recovery process; wherein steps e) and f) are performed either sequentially or simultaneously.

A fermentation product manufacturing process includes fermenting under fermentation conditions in an aqueous fermentation medium in a fermentation reactor a carbohydrate source with a microorganism capable of converting the carbohydrate into a fermentation product which is a salt or a product with a boiling point above the boiling point of water, during the process withdrawing part of the medium including biomass from the reactor in the form of a recycle stream, providing the stream including biomass to a pressure vessel wherein the pressure is such that the temperature of the stream decreases 1-8 C., as compared to the temperature of the medium in the reactor, by the evaporation of water, and recycling the cooled recycle stream to the reactor. The process makes it possible to obtain a homogeneous temperature profile of the fermentation medium with limited occurrence of hot or cool spots within the reactor which results in improved fermentation performance.

The present invention relates to a field of genetically modified fungal cells and converting galacturonic acid to meso-galactaric acid, more precisely to a method of producing meso-galactaric acid. The invention further relates to recombinant fungal cells having a specific combination of modifications including but not limited to expression of uronate dehydrogenase enzyme, reduced D-galacturonic acid reductase activity, and furthermore reduced meso-galactaric acid catabolism, as well as uses and methods related thereto.

The present invention relates to a field of genetically modified fungal cells and converting galacturonic acid to meso-galactaric acid, more precisely to a method of producing meso-galactaric acid. The invention further relates to recombinant fungal cells having a specific combination of modifications including but not limited to expression of uronate dehydrogenase enzyme, reduced D-galacturonic acid reductase activity, and furthermore reduced meso-galactaric acid catabolism, as well as uses and methods related thereto.

A method produces a chemical product by continuous fermentation including filtering a culture liquid of a microorganism(s) through a separation membrane, retaining unfiltered liquid in, or refluxing unfiltered liquid to, the culture liquid, adding a fermentation feedstock to the culture liquid, and recovering a product in the filtrate, wherein the microorganism(s) is/are a microorganism(s) that undergo(es) catabolite repression, and the fermentation feedstock comprises hexose and pentose.

The present disclosure provides methods of producing commodity products, the methods involving culturing a host cell that is genetically modified to produce a uronate dehydrogenase (UDH) that converts a sugar acid to its corresponding 1,5-aldonolactone, that uses NADP.sup.+ or NAD.sup.+ as a cofactor, and that produces NADPH or NADH, respectively, where the host cell coexpresses an endogenous or a heterologous reductase that utilizes the produced NADPH or NADH to generate the commodity product or a precursor thereof. The present disclosure provides a method of producing downstream products of glycerol and pyruvate in a genetically modified microbial host cell, the method involving culturing a genetically modified microbial host cell of the present disclosure in a culture medium comprising D-galacturonic acid. The present disclosure provides variant UDH polypeptides that utilize NADP.sup.+, nucleic acids encoding the variant UDH polypeptides; and host cells genetically modified with the nucleic acids.

The invention relates to a method of producing D-xylonate from D-xylose, which includes converting D-xylose to D-xylonate from a coryneform bacterium in which the activity of the iolR gene is reduced or completely switched off compared with the wild type or a mutation of the wild type, or the iolR gene is completed or partially deleted, as well as to a bacterium for carrying out the method.

The invention relates to a method of producing D-xylonate from D-xylose, which includes converting D-xylose to D-xylonate from a coryneform bacterium in which the activity of the iolR gene is reduced or completely switched off compared with the wild type or a mutation of the wild type, or the iolR gene is completed or partially deleted, as well as to a bacterium for carrying out the method.

The present disclosure provides novel bacterial strains with altered expression or start codon modification of one or more RNA degradation/processing genes. The RNA degradation genes of the present disclosure are controlled by heterologous promoters. The present disclosure further describes methods for generating microbial strains comprising heterologous promoter sequences operably linked to RNA degradation/processing genes.