An appropriate unstructured kinetic model describing the batch fermentation growth of Debaryomyces hansenii for xylitol production using hydrolysis of oil palm empty fruit bunch

Abstract This study aimed to determine an appropriate unstructured kinetic model describing the growth of Debaryomyces hansenii with the hydrolysis of oil palm empty bunches as the substrate sources. We tested the well-known cell growth kinetic models for approximating the xylitol fermentation data. We modeled the extracellular process by considering the biomass as a variable, xylose as the substrate and xylitol as the product. The appropriate kinetic model was determined by fitting the models to the experimental data. The fitting process involved an optimization procedure that minimizes a least-squared error between the model solution and the experimental data using a gradient-based method. We found that the unstructured model with Monod specific kinetic growth model had the best approximating ability to describe the dynamics of the batch xylitol fermentation data. Some factors were highlighted as the key factors that influence the growth of yeast cells. One of them is the maximum growth rate of the yeast cell which had a high sensitivity to the maximum production of new cells and xylitol as the main product. As Monod was the best-approximated model, it implies that inhibitory effects by substrate and product played an important role in controlling the growth of yeast cells. There was a certain maximum growth rate for the yeast cell that generates maximum production of new cells and xylitol within a relatively short fermentation time. This result indicates that the growth rate parameter played an important role in adjusting the fermentation process for optimality purposes.