Recovery of Acetoin from the Ethanol–Acetoin–Acetic Acid Ternary Mixture Based on Adsorption Methodology Using a Hyper-Cross-Linked Resin

Abstract

The separation performances, in terms of adsorption selectivity, desorption, and regeneration of an innovative hyper-cross-linked resin (HD-02) for recovery of acetoin from the ethanol–acetoin–acetic acid ternary mixture were explored in this work. The competitive adsorption behaviors of the ternary mixture were determined experimentally. The results showed the HD-02 resin had a good adsorption selectivity toward acetoin over acetic acid and ethanol. Subsequently, the desorption behaviors in terms of desorption isotherms and kinetics were systematically investigated. Using ethanol as a desorbent, the recovery could be achieved as high as 98% in the batch desorption experiments. The Fick model was adopted to simulate the desorption process. The simulation results revealed that the intraparticle diffusion was the rate-limiting step and the obtained effective diffusivities (1.530 × 10–9 m2/min) were independent of the acetoin concentrations. In the end of this work, three cycles of adsorption–desorption–regeneration operations confirmed good reproducibility of the resin for the attainment of acetoin.