Alkanol removal from the apolar phase of a two-liquid phase bioconversion system. Part 2: Effect of fermentation medium on batch distillation

Abstract

In two-liquid phase fermentations organic substrates and/or products are dissolved in an apolar phase while microorganisms are suspended in an aqueous medium. The effect of aqueous phase contaminants in the apolar phase on the separation of products from the apolar phase by batch distillation is described in this paper. Various amounts of polar phase, emulsified apolar phase and microorganisms normally present in the two-liquid fermentation medium were added to the organic phase. The recovery performance of a distillation unit in separating 1-octanol from such contaminated apolar phases was determined. Further, the bulk properties of the emulsified apolar phase, such as its composition, the nature and the stability of the emulsion were analysed. It was found that the distillation performance is very sensitive to the presence of fermentation media in the organic phase. The energy cost per kg product recovered was almost doubled for only small additions of fermentation impurities. The emulsified apolar phase was shown to be kinetically, but not thermally, stable. Based on these results a suitable apolar phase separation process before distillation can be developed, taking into account energy costs for phase separation and subsequent distillation, to optimize the overall downstream product purification process. © 1998 SCI