Abstract
Abstract A computational platform for the simulation, design and analysis of the Polylactic (PLA) acid production process using different lignocellulosic raw materials has been developed. The computational platform considers three main reactive-separation processes: 1) the bio-conversion process, where an hydrolysis-saccharification-culture process to produce the inoculated hydrolysate is coupled with a fermentation-separation process producing the broth with crude lactic acid; 2) the purification process, where a sequence of conventional and reactive distillation columns to perform the esterification and hydrolysis reactions, respectively, are used to produce a polymer grade lactic acid; and 3) the polymerization process, where a ring-opening polymerization reaction scheme to produce high molecular weight PLA is carried out. The platform was constructed on the Aspen Plus Environment. The implementation of the platform in a systematic manner allowed the evaluation of various mono and disaccharide materials to produce PLA. The results show that with a higher concentration of glucose the molecular weight of the PLA produced increased. However, the operation of the purification section, that is, the reactive distillation columns should be carried out carefully in order to obtain a purified lactic acid near to 88% mass fraction.
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