VALUABLE Fermentation and yeast oil recovery processes

This document is a draft still pending form the EC's approval. The yeast Cutaneotrichosporon oleaginosus is a promising microorganism for the production of single-cell oil (SCO) from various carbon sources, with high lipid accumulation of up to 85% of dry cell weight. Its ability to utilise a wide range of biopolymers and tolerate inhibitory compounds makes it efficient for industrial-scale SCO production. The downstream oil separation process involving enzymatic hydrolysis of biopolymers has a key role in improving efficiency. The production of customised hydrolytic enzymes is critical to reducing costs and improving the scalability of this process.The enzyme production was scaled from shaking flask experiments over a 1L lab-scale fermentation towards a 50L bioreactor to produce at least 20L of hydrolytic enzyme solution.