2. Materials and methods
2.1. Microorganism and mediaThe alcohol resistant and cryotolerant yeast S. cerevisiae AXAZ-1 [14] was grownon culture medium consisting of 4 g yeast extract/l, 1 g (NH4)2SO4/l, 1 g KH2PO4/l,5 g MgSO4·7H2O/l and 40 g glucose monohydrate/l. The culture was harvested at4000 rpm for 10 min. Synthetic media containing 12 g glucose/l and the above com-position of nutrients, were used for the cell immobilization procedure as describedbelow. Fermentations were performed in synthetic media containing various con-centrations of glucose or maltose in the range 80–140 g/l. All media were sterilizedby autoclaving at 130◦C at 1–1.5 atm for 15 min.