What happens during the fermentation process?
Fermentation is a metabolic pathway for certain microbial organisms in anoxic environments. During fermentation, larger organic molecules, like sugars, are converted into a mixture of reduced end products (products that have gained electrons). The process occurs in two steps. First, energy (in the form of ATP molecules) is produced by the reactions of glycolysis, a process that breaks down sugars and converts them into pyruvate molecules. NAD+ molecules are used up in this step and are transformed into NADH. In the second step, NAD+ is recreated from NADH via oxidation and reduction reactions (which involve repositioning electrons). NADH molecules donate an electron to an acceptor. In many organisms, a typical substance that receives the electron is oxygen. Because oxygen is not used by these micro-organisms, other endogenous electron acceptors are utilized in this cycle. Pyruvate molecules, (created during glycolysis) accept the electron and are subsequently converted into substances
