Design of a separation process for natural 2‐phenylethanol with solvent selection based on safety criteria

Abstract

AbstractBACKGROUNDIn the past, process safety has improved safety issues in chemical plants; today, it is essential to consider safety aspects in any process plant. Furthermore, the production of value‐added products through biotechnological methods has increased, and safety is usually not considered in this kind of process design. The biotechnological production of 2‐phenylethanol (2‐PE) has been studied at a laboratory scale. However, before considering industrial‐scale production, it is necessary to design an efficient and safe purification process to maintain the quality characteristics of 2‐PE. This work proposes a separation process for natural 2‐PE (which was obtained from whey fermentation) and evaluates its safety and economic aspects.RESULTSThis process is based on liquid–liquid extraction. The feed stream consists of an aqueous mixture with 0.095 wt% of 2‐PE and 1.54 wt% of ethanol. The conceptual design was implemented in the simulator Aspen Plus V.10. The bioprocess safety index (BPSI) was used to find the hazardous process streams for the safety evaluation.CONCLUSIONThe 2‐PE separation showed an overall recovery of 99.54% and a purity of 99.67 wt% in the product stream. The process streams identified as hazardous are the extract and solvent recycling streams. The utility and operating cost per separated kilogram of 2‐PE are USD 0.658 kg−1 and USD 14.48 kg−1, respectively. The industrial‐scale implementation of 2‐PE bioproduction shows positive potential. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).