Glycerol-Assisted Thermal Strategy for Intensifying Bioconversion Performance of Gluconobacter oxydans

Increasing the biotransformation temperature to balance the conditions of saccharification (50°C–60°C) is a crucial measure for intensifying bioprocess competitiveness. The study established a glycerol-assisted thermal strategy to mitigate the damage caused by high temperature on Gluconobacter oxydans . This approach successfully improved bioconversion performance by simultaneously overcoming limitations in catalytic efficiency and cell recovery. With 15 mmol/L glycerol assistance, the proportion of live cells remained at 75.9% after whole-cell catalysis at 37°C for 40 h. Moreover, 570.2 g xylonic acid was accumulated from pure xylose with the average volumetric productivity per round of 14.3 g/L/h, which was 14.5% and 19.6% higher than that of 30°C and 37°C without assistance. Additionally, to validate its practicality, this strategy was further applied to corncob hydrolysate, resulting 216.8 g xylonic acid from 1000 g corncob with the productivity of 4.1 g/h. This work presented an economically viable approach for lignocellulosic biorefinery and offers insights for its further development.