Purification of 2,3-butanediol from fermentation broth: process development and techno-economic analysis

Abstract

Background2,3-Butanediol (2,3-BDO) is a synthetic chemical compound that also can be produced by biomass fermentation, which is gaining share in the global market as an intermediate product for numerous applications, i.e. as liquid fuel or fuel additive. Several metabolic engineering fermentation strategies to enhance the production of 2,3-BDO were developed. However, the recovery of 2,3-BDO from its fermentation broth remains a challenge due to its low concentration and its solubility in water and other components. Thus, a cost-effective recovery process is required to deliver the required purity of 2,3-BDO. This paper presents a new process development and techno-economic analysis for 2,3-BDO purification from a fermentation broth.ResultsConventional distillation and hybrid extraction-distillation (HED) processes are proposed in this study with detailed optimization and economic analysis. Particularly, a systematic solvent selection method was successfully implemented to determine a good solvent for the proposed HED configuration based on numerous experimental data obtained with each solvent candidate. NRTL and UNIQUAC property methods were evaluated to obtain binary interaction parameters of 2,3-BDO through rigorous Aspen Plus regression and validated using experimental data. Total annual cost (TAC)-based optimization was performed for each proposed configuration. Even though the HED configuration required 9.5% higher capital cost than conventional distillation, placing an extraction column before the distillation column was effective in removing water from the fermentation broth and significantly improved the overall process economics.ConclusionsOleyl alcohol was found to be the most suitable solvent for the HED of 2,3-BDO due to its high distribution coefficient and high selectivity. The proposed HED drastically reduced reboiler duty consumption and TAC by up to 54.8 and 25.8%, respectively. The proposed design is expected to be used for the commercial scale of 2,3-BDO production from fermentation process.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1013-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Eco-efficient recovery of bio-based volatile C2–6 fatty acids

“…The utilization of extraction in the separation process of fermented product significantly reduces downstream processing costs [47, 48], a major hurdle in bio-product utilization [6, 27, 40, 49]. Separation by the direct distillation of the fermented product requires a large amount of energy due to the low VFAs’ content in water, generally 1–2%.…”

Bioprocess Development for 2,3‐Butanediol Production by Paenibacillus Strains

“…The addition of salt (salting‐out) and sugar (sugaring‐out) can further increase the solvent extraction efficiency leading to 90–99 % 2,3‐BDO recovery 79. However, the salt recycling can lead to scaling and blockage phenomena 83, which can be overcome with the use of sugar, since it can be reused as a substrate by microorganisms after the extraction process 79. The addition of 10 wt % of K 2 HPO 4 to the aqueous feed containing 2.5 wt % of 2,3‐BDO in a continuous countercurrent liquid‐liquid extraction using n ‐butanol as an extractor contributed to an increase in the extraction efficiency of 81.8 % and 30 % for a synthetic solution of 2,3‐BDO and a fermented broth, respectively 72.…”

“…Pervaporation 84, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis 73 processes have been reported as technologies capable of replacing part of the conventional DSP based on distillation 73. However, the membrane separation efficiency tends to decrease with time due to the fouling fibers caused by the increased complexity of the fermentation medium 3, 83. In the bio‐based 2,3‐BDO recovery, there was a greater efficiency of the reverse‐osmosis membrane compared to the nanofiltration membrane, due to the steric properties of its molecules and to less irreversible incrustations 73.…”

The current strategies and parameters for the enhanced microbial production of 2,3-butanediol

“…However, it is still challenging to develop an efficient and economically sustainable downstream process in 2,3-BD purification from its fermentation broth. This is mainly due to its low concentration, great affinity to water molecules, and the presence of other dissolved components of the fermentation mash [89].…”