Simultaneous production and extraction of bio-chemicals produced from fermentations via pervaporation

Abstract

Pervaporation (PV) technology has been widely applied for the separation of different types of azeotropic mixtures, aching its large-scale application in industry for the dehydration of organics (e.g., ethanol, butanol, among others). So far, thanks to its versatility and high selectivity towards specific molecules, PV has been a candidate to assist chemical and biochemical reactions. Fermentative processes allow the production of specific bio-based chemicals of interest, such as ethanol, butanol, acetone, among others. However, their separation and extraction from fermentation broths is a challenging task due to their complexity, in this regard, PV has been successfully applied. Therefore, the goal of this review is to elucidate and provide a compelling outlook about the potential of PV for the separation of such chemicals. A particular emphasis has been paid to the key developments and meaningful insights in the recovery of bio-chemicals from fermentation broths along with future trends and perspectives in the field. For the new readers in the field, a brief introduction of the PV technique and its principles are also given. Further large-scale implementation of PV processes remains a challenge due to several constraints including cost, specificity, fouling, and energy-consumption. However, implementation of new materials, PV-fermentation configurations, anti-biofouling membranes, and reduction of by-products through genetic, metabolic, or system modifications, represent an alternative to overcome such limitations.