Abstract A newly isolated sucrose-tolerant, lac- tic acid bacterium, Lactobacillus sp. strain FCP2, was grown on sugar-cane juice (125 g sucrose l )1 , 8 g glucose l )1 and 6 g fructose l )1 ) for 5 days and produced 104 g lactic acid l )1 with 90% yield. A higher yield (96%) and productivity (2.8 g l )1 h )1 ) were obtained when strain FCP2 was cultured on 3% w/v (25 g sucrose l )1 , 2 g glucose l )1 and 1 g fructose l )1 ) sugar-cane juice for 10 h. Various cheap nitrogen sources such as silk worm larvae, beer yeast autolysate and shrimp wastes were also used as a substitute to yeast extract. Keywords Lactic acid Æ Lactobacillus sp. Æ Nitrogen sources Æ Sugar-cane juice Introduction Lactic acid is used as an acidulant and pre- servative in food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and textile industries (Olmos-Dichara et al. 1997; Sreenath et al. 2001). It is also used as a precursor in the production of emulsifiers such as stearoyl-2- lactylates in the baking industries. Currently, lactic acid is becoming important as an interme- diate feedstock for the production of polylactide (PLA) (Demirci et al. 1993; Datta et al. 1995; Anuradha et al. 1999; Tokiwa and Jarerat 2004). However, its production cost is high due to expensive raw materials and the high cost of product recovery and purification. Hence, it is necessary to find inexpensive raw materials for lactic acid fermentation so that it could be pro- duced economically. Usually, glucose, maltose or lactose is used for its production. Sugar-cane juice containing 13%–16% (w/v) sucrose is not only renewable and abundant but also a cheap source of carbon. Molasses a by-product in the production of sugar, when use in fermentation causes serious problems in the downstream pro- cessing and in the final waste treatment. Utilization of sugar-cane juice in the fermentation industry will reduce the use of molasses. Thus, the aim of this study was to elucidate the feasibility of sugar-cane juice as an alternative carbon source and to develop an environmental loading reduction technology for the production W. Timbuntam Kasetsart Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Improvement Institute, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand K. Sriroth Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Agro- Industry, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand Y. Tokiwa (&) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba Central 6, 1-1-1 Higashi, TsukubaIbaraki 305-8566, Japan e-mail: y.tokiwa@aist.go.jp Biotechnol Lett (2006) 28:811–814 DOI 10.1007/s10529-006-9003-0 123 ORIGINAL PAPER Lactic acid production from sugar-cane juice by a newly isolated Lactobacillus sp. Walaiporn Timbuntam Æ Klanarong Sriroth Æ Yutaka Tokiwa Received: 13 December 2005 / Accepted: 8 February 2006 / Published online: 18 May 2006 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006