Adsorptive Separation and Recovery of Triacetic Acid Lactone from Fermentation Broth

Singh, R., Bhagwat, S.S., Viswanathan, M.B., Cortés-Peña, Y.R., Eilts, K.K., McDonough, G., Cao, M., Guest, J.S., Zhao, H., Singh, V. Aug. 19, 2022. “Bioindustrial-Park–TAL” GitHub Repository.

Triacetic acid lactone (TAL) can be microbially produced and further chemically upgraded to several high-value chemicals. In this work, several acidic and basic ion-exchange resins and activated charcoal were evaluated for their ability to adsorb microbially produced TAL. Activated charcoal and a weak base resin, Dowex 66, showed similar TAL adsorption capacity of 0.18 ± 0.002 g/g. At 15% w/v activated charcoal, about 98% of TAL present in fermentation broth could be adsorbed. Further, ethanol washing allowed recovery of 72% of adsorbed TAL. A biorefinery producing TAL from sucrose was designed, simulated, and evaluated (through technoeconomic analysis) under uncertainty, for an estimated TAL minimum product selling price (MPSP) of $4.27/kg [$3.71−4.94/kg; 5th-95th percentiles] for the current state of technology and $2.83/kg [$2.46–3.29/kg] following potential near-term improvements to fermentation. Thus, this work provides an adsorptive process to recover microbially produced TAL that can be chemically upgraded to several industrial products.

Github – TAL Data and Code

Download (6.4MB) includes:

• Adsorption Comparison
• Resin Properties
• Uncertain Parameters