Acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) facilities have traditionally presented unattractive economics because of the large energy consumption during recovery of the products from a dilute fermentation broth (∼13 g/L butanol). This problem results from the high toxicity of butanol to microorganisms that catalyze its production. Flash fermentation is a continuous fermentation system with integrated product recovery. The bioreactor is operated at atmospheric pressure and the broth is circulated in a closed loop to a vacuum chamber where ABE is continuously boiled off at 37 °C and condensed afterward. With this technology the beer achieved a concentration of butanol as high as 30–37 g/L. This paper studies the energy requirements for butanol recovery using the flash fermentation technology and its effect on the energy consumption by the downstream distillation system. Compressors are used to remove the vapors from the flash tank, thus maintaining the desired vacuum. The heat recovery technique of vapor recompression is used to reduce energy requirements. With this technique the heat generated by the compression and partial condensation of the vapors provides the energy for boil up (heat of vaporization) in the flash tank. Thus the energy requirement for the flash fermentation is essentially the electrical power demanded by compressors. Energy for recirculation pumps accounts for approximately 0.5% of the total energy consumption. Small increments in butanol concentration in the beer can have important positive impacts on the energy consumption of the distillation unit. Nonetheless, the energy use of the recovery technology must be included in the energy balance. For a fermentation with a wild-type strain, the total energy requirement for butanol recovery (flash fermentation + distillation) was 17.0 MJ/kg butanol, with 36% of this value demanded by the flash fermentation. This represents a reduction of 39% in the energy for butanol recovery in relation to the conventional batch process. In the case of a fermentation with a hyper-butanol producing mutant strain, the use of the flash fermentation could reduce the energy consumption for butanol recovery by 16.8% in relation to a batch fermentation with the same mutant strain.

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A model of ethanol fermentation considering the effect of temperature was developed and validated. Experiments were performed in a temperature range from 28 to 40 degrees C in continuous mode with total cell recycling using a tangential microfiltration system. The developed model considered substrate, product and biomass inhibition, as well as an active cell phase (viable) and an inactive (dead) phase. The kinetic parameters were described as functions of temperature.

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In this work, a procedure was established to develop a mathematical model considering the effect of temperature on reaction kinetics. Experiments were performed in batch mode in temperatures from 30 to 38 degrees C. The microorganism used was Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the culture media, sugarcane molasses. The objective is to assess the difficulty in updating the kinetic parameters when there are changes in fermentation conditions. We conclude that, although the re-estimation is a time-consuming task, it is possible to accurately describe the process when there are changes in raw material composition if a re-estimation of parameters is performed.

Lactic acid is an important product arising from the anaerobic fermentation of sugars. It is used in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, chemical, and food industries as well as for biodegradable polymer and green solvent production. In this work, several bacterial strains were isolated from industrial ethanol fermentation, and the most efficient strain for lactic acid production was selected. The fermentation was conducted in a batch system under anaerobic conditions for 50 h at a temperature of 34 degrees C, a pH value of 5.0, and an initial sucrose concentration of 12 g/L using diluted sugarcane molasses. Throughout the process, pulses of molasses were added in order to avoid the cell growth inhibition due to high sugar concentration as well as increased lactic acid concentrations. At the end of the fermentation, about 90% of sucrose was consumed to produce lactic acid and cells. A kinetic model has been developed to simulate the batch lactic acid fermentation results. The data obtained from the fermentation were used for determining the kinetic parameters of the model. The developed model for lactic acid production, growth cell, and sugar consumption simulates the experimental data well.

The objective of this work is to introduce and demonstrate the technical feasibility of the continuous flash fermentation for the production of butanol. The evaluation was carried out through mathematical modeling and computer simulation which is a good approach in such a process development stage. The process consists of three interconnected units, as follows: the fermentor, the cell retention system (tangential microfiltration) and the vacuum flash vessel (responsible for the continuous recovery of butanol from the broth). The efficiency of this process was experimentally validated for the ethanol fermentation, whose main results are also shown. With the proposed design the concentration of butanol in the fermentor was lowered from 11.3 to 7.8 g/l, which represented a significant reduction in the inhibitory effect. As a result, the final concentration of butanol was 28.2 g/l for a broth with 140 g/l of glucose. Solvents productivity and yield were, respectively, 11.7 g/l.h and 33.5 % for a sugar conversion of 95.6 %. Positive aspects about the flash fermentation process are the solvents productivity, the use of concentrated sugar solution and the final butanol concentration. The last two features can be responsible for a meaningful reduction in the distillation costs and result in environmental benefits due to lower quantities of wastewater generated by the process.