Although fermentation of carbohydrates to the mixture of butanol
with acetone and ethanol (ABE) was a well established process,
ABE butanol could not compete on a commercial scale with the later
butanol produced synthetically from petrochemical industry, as
cost issues, the relatively low-yield and sluggish fermentations, as
well as problems caused by end product inhibition and bacteriophage
infections [2]. In 1945, 66% of the total butanol and 10% of
the total acetone production in the world were obtained by ABE
fermentation, making it the largest scale bioindustry ever run,