When applied at sublethal temperatures, the electroporation effect caused by the OH method has demonstrated the potential to benefit fermentative processes. The application of OH was studied for the fermentation of Lactobacillus acidophilus by Cho, Yousef, and Sastry and also
by Loghavi, Sastry, and Yousef. In Cho et al.’s study, the fermentative process temperature control was performed by conventional heating (waterbath) and by OH (at constant voltage values of 15 V or 40 V). The processes were conducted at different temperatures (30, 35 and 40 C). It was observed that the incidence of electric field in the process may cause membrane electroporation provoking faster and more efficient nutrient transport to the interior of the cell, thus reducing the lag phase of the fermentation. On later fermentative stages, however, OH has demonstrated to cause productivity decrease. This decrease may also be related to the electroporation effect which possibly allows the transport of metabolites to the interior of the cell and consequently inhibits the fermentative process