Electrifying food fermentations to promote sustainability
Redox mediators can replace oxygen as final electron acceptors for Lactococcus lactis and activate anaerobic respiration, which affects redox and energy metabolism, product formation, and growth.
Continuous electrochemical regeneration of the redox mediator enables a drastic reduction in its concentration and provides a redox sink to sustain anaerobic growth of L. lactis strains hampered in redox–cofactor regeneration.
Electro-stimulated anaerobic growth results in biomass yields and growth rates comparable with those found for hemesupplemented cultures grown with aeration.
A scalable industrial concept, based on existing food industrial infrastructure, combines an electrolyzer for mediator regeneration with harvesting the respiratory electrons for H2 evolution.
https://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(25)00262-8
