Butyrate fermentation by immobilized Clostridium tyrobutyricum Was successfully carried out in a fibrous bed bioreactor using cane molasses. Batch fermentations were conducted to investigate the influence of pH on the metabolism of the strain, and the results showed that the fermentation gave a highest butyrate production of 26.2 g l(-1) with yield of 0.47 g g(-1) and reactor productivity up to 4.13 g l(-1) h(-1) at pH 6.0. When repeated-batch fermentation was carried out, long-term operation with high butyrate yield, volumetric productivity was achieved. Several cane molasses pretreatment techniques were investigated, and it was found that sulfuric acid treatment gave better results regarding butyrate concentration (34.6 +/- 0.8 g l(-1)), yield (0.58 +/- 0.01 g g(-1)), and sugar utilization (90.8 +/- 0.9%). Also, fed-batch fermentation from cane molasses pretreated with sulfuric acid was performed to further increase the concentration of butyrate up to 55.2 g l(-1). (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.