Exploring the Impact of Alginite Mineral on Lactic Acid Bacteria

Studying the uses of different organic-mineral rocks is an expanding area of research. Although these materials have primarily been used in forestry and agriculture, other potential applications include cosmetics and nutrition. Alginite is a volcanic substance that resembles loam and is composed of clay minerals and extinct unicellular algae. Hungary’s unique and environmentally friendly agricultural utilization of alginite has sparked international interest and prompted further exploration of its potential applications. In recent years, studies have shown that alginate can be useful in agriculture and as a food supplement, the latter only when supplemented with lactic acid-producing bacteria (LAB). On the contrary, our study investigates the application of alginite during the LAB fermentation, expecting higher cell numbers. Our experiments, conducted using small-scale impedimetric high-throughput equipment, revealed that alginite positively influenced total cell biomass regarding at least two of the three tested LAB species, confirming the enhancement hypothesis. We also thoroughly investigated the fermentations in a lab-scale bioreactor to validate these results. The boosting potential of alginite was verified for all tested LAB strains since, depending on the applied strain, alginite resulted in a 27–63% increase in cell dry weight for all tested LAB.