Lactic Acid Fermentation

Dear Colleagues,

Lactic acid (LA) is among the most requested compounds by the food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Current substantial increase of LA global demand (≈12.5% per year) is mainly related to LA use as building block for manufacturing biodegradable and biocompatible polymers (e.g. polylactide, PLA) with application as general substitutes of petroleum-derived plastics.

Nowadays, about 90% of the global LA is produced by microbial fermentation of food crops (e.g. corn and sugarcane), which raises ethical and economical concerns. The current cost of LA (US$ 1.30–4.0/kg) should decrease to less than US$ 0.8/kg for PLA to be economically competitive with oil-derived polymers.

Research on alternative feedstocks for LA fermentation has focused on non-food feedstocks such as by-products of dairy industry (e.g., milk whey), food waste, glycerol, microalgae, wheat bran or lignocellulose. The present special issue aims to capture the state-of-the-art in the most cutting edge strategies for fermentative production of LA, providing solutions from both environmental and economic sustainability. All level studies, from proof-of-concept to large/industrial scale process, from optimization of fermentation conditions down to microbial physiology, including microbial consortia and metabolic engineering of pure microbial strain(s), both research articles and reviews are welcome, provided their high quality.

Dr. Roberto Mazzoli
Dr. Joachim Venus
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.