Production of 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furan carboxylic acid by Serratia marcescens from crude 5-hydroxymethylfurfural

A valuable monomer in the synthesis of various polyesters is 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furan carboxylic acid (HMFCA). In this work, the synthesis of HMFCA using crude HMF obtained from fructose is described. To obtain crude HMF, fructose dehydration was performed by thermal treatment with Nb2O5, obtaining a yield of 76%. Then, the crude HMF was evaluated in the production of HMFCA using Serratia marcescens at different conditions such as initial optical density (OD), pH, temperature, and substrate concentration. Once the conditions were optimized, the HMFCA concentration of 790.2 mg/L was obtained using the fed-batch strategy.