[josse]

Hey all,

I am a bit confused at the moment about a question someone asked me: is fermentation (lets say to produce ethanol) an oxidating or reducing proces?
And what with glycolysis?

I was thinking that fermentation was neither an oxidation nor reducing cycle since you use the same product (the one you are fermenting) both as electron donor and acceptor.
You first need to oxidate the glucose to form pyruvate and then you reduce pyruvate to ethanol.

Or is this wrong?


And what with glycolysis? I would think this is an oxidating reaction since you form NADH during this proces.

(wich you use later on during the following stages in fermentation)

or?

[Wreath]

I think your ideas are correct. Since you have basically three types of bacterial metabolism (aerobic oxidation, anaerobic oxidation and fermentation), in aerobic oxygen is the final electron acceptor, in anaerobic acceptor is everything else than oxygen and in fermentation is AFAIK generally the same donor and acceptor. Glycolysis is definitely oxidation. So I would say you're right.