Reactive Extraction of Propionic Acid

Abstract

192Propionic acid is greatly utilized in food, chemical, pharmacy, and other industries. The gaining values of fermentation explained with new techniques leads to focus on technologies for downstream processing for product separation. The reactive extraction is effectively used to recover propionic acid from process feed solution. The reactive extraction with particular extractant and a specific pair of extractant and solvents give the higher capacity and selectivity of propionic acid. The extraction of propionic acid by reactive extraction is studied using solvents like toluene, «-hexane, petroleum ether (PE), and ethyl acetate (EA). Aqueous solution of propionic acid is taken between 0.1 and 0.4 gmol/L. The recovery of propionic acid (0.4 gmol/L) with solvents give the different distribution coefficient (KD) in toluene, «-hexane, PE, and EA equal to 0.302, 0.126, 0.142, and 2.33, respectively. After the reactive extraction is studied with the combinations of extractant (tri-iso-octyl amine (TIOA))-solvents. The extraction of propionic acid with 30% of TIOA in solvent shows the higher KD value for toluene, «-hexane, PE, and EA. These are 2.73, 0.843, 0.941, and 4.92, respectively. If results are compared then it can be concluded that using the combinations of extractant solvents, the extraction is effectively improved.