In this study, yeast and acetic acid bacteria strains
were adopted to enhance the ethanol-type fermentation
resulting to a volatile fatty acids yield of 30.22 g/L, and
improve acetic acid production to 25.88 g/L, with food wastes
as substrate. In contrast, only 12.81 g/L acetic acid can be
obtained in the absence of strains. The parameters such as pH,
oxidation reduction potential and volatile fatty acids were
tested and the microbial diversity of different strains and
activity of hydrolytic ferment were investigated to reveal the
mechanism. The optimum pH and oxidation reduction potential for the acetic acid production were determined to be at
3.0–3.5 and -500 mV, respectively. Yeast can convert organic
matters into ethanol, which is used by acetic acid bacteria to
convert the organic wastes into acetic acid. The acetic acid thus
obtained from food wastes micro-aerobic fermentation liquid
could be extracted by distillation to get high-pure acetic acid.