DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Yeasts In accordance with my invention, yeasts are employed.
Typically, yeasts can be grown on a suitable carbon energy source (substrate), under aerobic aqueous fermentation conditions employing assimilable nitrogen-source, mineral salts aqueous media, molecular oxygen, with suitable pH and other controls, all as known in the art.
The carbon energy substrate can be any carbon energy source, such as hydrocarbons, oxygenated hydrocarbons, including various carbohydrates, and the like, suitable as yeast substrates.
It is recognized that particular yeasts do vary in their preference for various substrates.
The presently preferred substrates for aqueous fermentation conditions are the oxygenated hydrocarbons or carbon-oxygen-hydrogen (C--O--H) compounds which are significantly water-soluble.
The term C--O--H is intended to be a generic term in this disclosure descriptive of compounds employable, and not necessarily a limiting term referring to the source of the substrate.
For this disclosure, the C--O--H compounds include the water-soluble carbohydrates, as well as those alcohols, ketones, esters, acids, and aldehydes, and mixtures, which are reasonably significantly water-soluble in character, generally of 1 to 20 carbon atoms per molecule.
Preferred are the C--O--H compounds which exhibit the greater water-solubility.
Preferred are the water-soluble linear monohydric aliphatic hydrocarbyl alcohols, particularly methanol and ehtanol.
It also is possible to employ in accordance with my process normal paraffins of such as 10 to 20 carbon atoms per molecule, though much less preferred because of the sometimes difficulty in removing residual substrate from the single cell protein cells.
Yeasts generally do not assimilate paraffins of less than 10 carbon atoms per molecule.
Scope of Microorganisms Broadly contemplated by the present invention are all yeasts.
Preferably, yeast strains are chosen from the following genera: Saccharomyces, Candida, Torulopsis, Pichia, Hansenula, Kluyveromyces, and Kloeckera
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