Lactic is one of the rising products for industrial use, and it has many functions in different fields. For economical production by fermentation, it has many factors, one of the essential factors is cost-effective raw material. The feedstocks sugars like starch, sucrose, glucose used for lactic acid production are very expensive. Thus, in place of expensive sugar feedstock, lignocellulosic biomass is used for the manufacturing of lactic acid considering its low cost, sustainability, availability in contrast to processed sugars. In spite of these benefits, commercial utilization of lignocellulosic material for lactic acid production still imposes challenge. This review describes the conventional method and different processing stages involved during production of lactic acid. Additionally, the use of lignocellulosic raw material, different microbial strains, and fermentation methods for lactic acid production and highlighted the numerous key points have been pointed out, which could be targeted for advancing fermentation processes.

Lactic acid, Lignocellulosic raw material, Fermentation method.

In recent times, lactic acid use has increased due to its applications in different fields such as pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and chemical industries. For commercial purposes, batch and continuous fermentation methods are used to produce lactic acid. The continuous fermentation method gives more productivity, while the batch fermentation method gives high concentration. In batch fermentation, the bacterial genus Lactobacillus and fungal genus Rhizopus are used to produce lactic acid. Yeast species like Candida, Saccharomyces, and Pichia are established to produce a high yield of lactic acid, but their production cost is relatively high. Batch fermentation is classified into two Solid State Fermentation and Separate Hydrolysis and Fermentation. Solid-State Fermentation is more effective in comparison with Separate Hydrolysis and Fermentation. Raw material for lactic acid production, generally refined starch and cellulose materials, is used. However, the present trend of research is the production of lactic acid by using lignocellulosic materials such as agricultural waste like corn cob, sugarcane molasses, banana peduncle, beet molasses and many more. There is ample range for the production of lactic acid using lignocellulosic material as raw materials. Moreover, the progressive development in the field of molecular biology has open new opportunities to modify the genetic code of microbes for improving the production and activity of these enzymes synthesized by them.

Surbhi Tripathi, Daljeet Singh Dhanjal, Reena Singh and Chirag Chopra (2022). Lactic Acid Production from Lignocellulosic Materials. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(2): 651-661.