Process design and economic studies of two-step fermentation for production of ascorbic acid

Abstract

The current study presents the conceptual design of a chemical plant for an annual production of 500 tonne ascorbic acid or Vitamin C with a high purity of 95% via fermentation of d-sorbitol. In this study, two-step fermentation with a single culture process is operated with a proper ISO 14000 Environmental Management procedure. A process flow diagram of the processing plant and the plant-wide simulation flowsheet that was generated by SuperPro Designer Simulation software, as well as the material and energy balances are also depicted. Meanwhile, the process is optimized through the recycling of sorbose and heat integration. By recycling sorbose, the production of ascorbic acid has increased by 24% while the total energy consumption had reduced by 20% after heat integration. Furthermore, economic and sensitivity analysis was performed to calculate the profitability of the plant and predict the effect of market conditions on the investments. After the economic analysis, total capital investment and total production cost for the best scenario were found to be roughly USD 52 million and USD 43 million, respectively with a return on investment of 78.73% and a payback period of 1.17 years since the selling price of Vitamin C is high.

Circular Economy Metrics for the Photo-High-p,T Continuous Multistep Synthesis of Vitamin D3

“…As other benchmark, three drugs were taken: two painkillers (paracetamol and ibuprofen) and an antibiotic (amoxicillin); they are also consumed globally on a large scale as the considered vitamins. For VD3, the photo-high-p,T process described by Escribà-Gelonch et al − was considered; for vitamin C, the two-step fermentation described by Lim et al; and for choline, the US3373201 patent . For paracetamol, the process starting from hydroquinone by Joncour et al was used, and for ibuprofen, the process according to US4981995; and the green route for amoxicillin production with a recycling integration described by Pereira et al The selection criterion of methodologies was to consider the current most circular and greenest process described, so the most advantageous process in terms of sustainability, which can give longer-term impact to this study, since industries need to move toward circularity.…”

Chemocatalytic production of sorbitol from cellulose via sustainable chemistry – a tutorial review

“…As a platform chemical, sorbitol can be used to produce vitamin C or ascorbic acid (ASC) by fermentation 18 or isosorbide (ISB) by dehydration. 19 Sorbitol can be further hydrolyzed to low carbon number alcohols such as glycerol (GLY), propylene glycol (PG) and ethylene glycol (EG) 20,21 for replacing petroleum industry products, and can be converted into cyclic hydrocarbons for aerospace fuels by continuous isomerization aromatization.…”

Surfactants produced from carbohydrate derivatives: A review of the biobased building blocks used in their synthesis

“…Finally, 2‐ketogluconic acid is rearranged in an acid medium to become ascorbic acid (Elste et al, 2020). Recently, other processes have been developed and reviewed (Pappenberger & Hohmann, 2014), allowing profitable production of ascorbic acid, if Vitamin C or other value‐added specialty chemicals are synthesized (Lim et al, 2020; Reshmy et al, 2022).…”

“…Recently, other processes have been developed and reviewed (Pappenberger & Hohmann, 2014), allowing profitable production of ascorbic acid, if Vitamin C or other value-added specialty chemicals are synthesized (Lim et al, 2020;Reshmy et al, 2022). Ascorbic acid presents antioxidant properties, and therefore, it is used to prevent oil oxidation and in cosmetics formulation; however, its use for this purpose is limited due to its low solubility in hydrophobic substances.…”