Fatty acids are desirable feedstock for PHAs production
because they are relatively cheap compared to most sugars. Although the production of PHAs using sugars has been
optimized to achieve high productivity, the cost of production
is still high because sugars contribute to low PHAs yield. In
addition, the theoretical yield coefficient of PHA from fatty
acid (e.g., 0.65-0.98 kg/kg from butyric acid) is considerably
higher than that from glucose (0.32-0.48 kg/kg) (Reddy et al. 2003). However, bacterial fermentation using fatty acids still
has some problems. One major problem is the relatively low
growth rate of available PHA-producing bacteria. Even if a bacterium, that the growth rate of which on fatty acids is
rather high, is employed for PHA production, the PHA
content in the dry cells is relatively low (Chan et al. 2006). In this study, we attempted to produce Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) by a wild-type strain Pseudomonas fluorescens SC4 isolated from Finish soil utilizing different fatty acids as sole carbon source cultivated
into flasks batch and 3L lab scale bioreactor fermentation. The results obtained during fermentation suggested that PHA
production from fatty acids has a potential advantage for
reduction on the production cost. Furthermore, based on the presented results, we emphasized the biotechnological
importance of bacterial strains inhabiting Nordic soils.