The most influential parameters for succinic acid production obtained through one at a time method were sucrose, tryptone, magnesium carbonate, inoculum size and incubation period. These resulted in the production of 7.0 g L-1 of succinic acid in 60 h from Escherichia coli W3110 under anaerobic conditions. Based on these results, a statistical method, face centered central composite design (FCCCD) falling under response surface method (RSM) was employed for further enhancing the succinic acid production and to monitor the interactive effect of these parameters, which resulted in a twofold increase in yield (14.3 g L-1 in 48 h). The analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed the adequacy of the model and the verification experiments confirmed its validity. On subsequent scale-up in a 10-L bioreactor using conditions optimized through RSM, 24.2 g L-1 of succinic acid was obtained in 30 h. This clearly indicated that the model stood valid even on large-scale. Thus, the statistical optimization strategy led to a 3.5-fold increase in the yield of succinic acid. This is the first report on the use of FCCCD to improve succinic acid production from E. coli. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.