Conditions for a continuous production of transient microbial products in a two-stage fermentation system

The optimal residence time in the inducing reactor of a continuous two-stage system has been studied in order to maximize the yield in such a process. The attention has been focused on the case in which the product (or one of its forms) appears in the culture only transiently after the induction. Whereas in some cases the two-stage system is able to improve the yield and to allow a continuous product concentration in the outgoing stream, in others, and depending on how the product is accumulated in the induced culture, no optimal residence time can be found, and a higher productivity will be achieved by using the one-stage continuous strategy or a batch fermentation. © 1993 Chapman & Hall.