Itaconic acid is a promising chemical that has a wide range of applications and can be obtained in large scale using fermentation processes. One of the most important uses of this biomonomer is the environmentally sustainable production of biopolymers. Separation of itaconic acid from the fermented broth has a considerable impact in the total production cost. Therefore, optimization and high efficiency downstream processes are technological challenges to make biorefineries sustainable and economically viable. This review describes the current state of the art in recovery and purification for itaconic acid production via bioprocesses. Previous studies on the separation of itaconic acid relying on operations such as crystallization, precipitation, extraction, electrodialysis, diafiltration, pertraction, and adsorption. Although crystallization is a typical method of itaconic acid separation from fermented broth, other methods such as membrane separation and reactive extraction are promising as a recovery steps coupled to the fermentation, potentially enhancing the overall process yield. Another approach is adsorption in fixed bed columns, which efficiently separates itaconic acid. Despite recent advances in separation and recovery methods, there is still space for improvement in IA recovery and purification.

Itaconic acid (IA) is an unsaturated diacid, a promising compound that might replace part of the petrochemical-based monomers, such as acrylic acid, as a building block for polymers. Recent developments in biotechnology allow the efficient production of IA through fermentation processes. However, further enhancements are necessary in the downstream (recovery) of the product. This investigation examined the separation of IA by adsorption from aqueous solutions, using two types of commercial, strongly basic ion-exchange resins: Purolite A-500P and PFA-300. To evaluate the separation process, the following parameters were tested: pH (from 3.03 to 6.33), temperature (from 10 to 50 °C), and IA concentration (from 0.41 to 6.50 g·L–1). The Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms were shown to be good fits to the experimental data, and the adsorption kinetics for IA was found to follow a pseudo-second-order (PSO) model. After batch tests, continuous adsorption experiments were carried out using a fixed bed column, and a simplified mathematical model was developed and evaluated in order to determine the adsorption parameters. The experimental data obtained from the column tests were aligned with those obtained from the isotherms and batch simulations with PSO. The resin PFA-300 proved to be more efficient for IA recovery through adsorption, with a maximum capacity of 0.154 gIA.gresin –1 when compared to the resin A-500P, with a maximum capacity of 0.097 gIA.gresin –1. Both resins have high affinity for the solute, being half-saturated with equilibrium concentrations below 0.25 g·L–1 of acid.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract