Enhancing the bioproduction of value-added aroma compounds via solid-state fermentation of sugarcane bagasse and sugar beet molasses: Operational strategies and scaling-up of the process.

Bioproduction of generally recognized as safe (GRAS) products starting with low-cost raw materials has become significant in the biorefinery concept. Thus, the solid-state fermentation (SSF) of agro-industrial residues using GRAS strains appears as alternative to obtain aroma compounds. Here, the SSF of the mixture sugarcane bagasse/sugar beet molasses was used for producing a mixture of value-added fruit-like compounds. The study aimed to enhance the production and ester selectivity evaluating three operational strategies at three scales (0.5, 4.5 and 22 L) using non-sterilized residues. While the average total volatile production was 120 mg per gram of dry substrate (g), fed-batch operation promoted the highest increases in the ester content up to 57 mg g, an 88 and 59% more than in the static-batch and intermittent mixing modes respectively. Alternative operational strategies have compensated the scale-up adverse effects in the bioproduction, moving towards a sustainable large-scale application in a circular economy scheme.