Question

Biomass yield from substrate and fermentative metabolism are same.

(a) True

(b) False

I had been asked this question in unit test.

This question is from Monitoring and Control of Bioreactors topic in section Reactor Engineering of Bioprocess Engineering

Answer 1

Right answer is (b) False

For explanation: Maximum biomass yield from substrate is achieved at relatively low glucose concentrations in the presence of adequate oxygen; fermentative metabolism occurs if the glucose concentration rises above a certain level even though oxygen may be present. Fermentative metabolism should be avoided for biomass production because the yield of cells is reduced as ethanol and carbon dioxide are formed as end-products.