Abstract
Lactic acid has become one of the most important chemical substances used in various sectors. Its global market demand has significantly increased in recent years, with a CAGR of 18.7% from 2019 to 2025. Fermentation has been considered the preferred method for producing high-purity lactic acid in the industry over chemical synthesis. However, the recovery and separation of lactic acid from microbial fermentation media are relatively complicated and expensive, especially in the process relating to second-generation (2G) lactic acid recovery. This article reviews the development and progress related to lactic acid separation and recovery from fermentation broth. Various aspects are discussed thoroughly, such as the mechanism of lactic acid production through fermentation, the crucial factors that influence the fermentation process, and the separation and recovery process of conventional and advanced lactic acid separation methods. This review's highlight is the recovery of lactic acid by adsorption technique using ion-exchange resins with a brief focus on the potential of in-site separation strategies alongside the important factors that influenced the lactic acid recovery process by ion exchange. Apart from that, other lactic acid separation techniques, such as chemical neutralization, liquid–liquid extraction, membrane separation, and distillation, are also thoroughly reviewed.
Highlights
The majority of industrial production of lactic acid today relies on the fermentation process, and its development has continued to grow rapidly in industries, in terms of technological process and methodological innovation
Amberlite IRA-67 and IRA-400, were compared for Second generation (2G)-lactic acid adsorption and recovery, where the results showed that both resins exhibited high adsorption capacity, Amberlite IRA-67 has better performance compared to Amberlite IRA-400 for 2G-lactic acid recovery (13.4%), with 100% protein and color removal as well as 99.10% of sugar removal
Fermentation of feedstock waste is a promising method for lactic acid production
Summary
The majority of industrial production of lactic acid today relies on the fermentation process, and its development has continued to grow rapidly in industries, in terms of technological process and methodological innovation. Practical approaches using ion exchange adsorption resin is targeted on improving the efficiency of lactic acid separation and recovery in 2G-fermentations system This plays a great importance to produce a higher yield of lactic acid at a lower cost. Elution by liquid adsorption took place at this stage as lactic acid is recovered through the eluent This extractive operation process of lactic acid separation and recovery has been reported in several studies (Zaini et al 2019b; Evangelista and Nikolov 1996; González et al 2006). Weak anion-exchange resins are used due to their properties that could adsorb lactic acid below and above its acid dissociation constant This fact is advantageous, as it does not require fermentation broth acidification before adsorption (John et al 2008). Zaini et al (2019b) reported the yield of 96 and 100% of lactic acid recovery at 0.5 and
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