Techno-Economic Analysis of Alternative Designs for Low-pH Lactic Acid Production

Autor(es)

Marchesan, Andressa Neves ^[1] ; Leal Silva, Jean Felipe ^[1] ; Maciel Filho, Rubens ^[1] ; Wolf Maciel, Maria Regina ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Estadual Campinas, Sch Chem Engn, BR-13083852 Campinas, SP - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: ACS SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY & ENGINEERING; v. 9, n. 36, p. 12120-12131, SEP 13 2021.
• Citações Web of Science: 0

Resumo

Lactic acid production is highly affected by the fermentation pH. The need for neutralizing agents and the salts produced during fermentation have a significant impact on the overall process performance. Changing the neutralizing agent and allowing lower pH fermentation can improve the process profitability. This work investigates the impact of fermentation parameters and evaluates the process economics of alternative downstream processing designs to produce lactic acid. The results show that low-pH fermentation (pH = 3.86) was profitable (internal rate of return, IRR > 10%) at a fermentation yield of 0.97 g/g sucrose. Decomposing the salt subproduct to reduce the environmental burden associated with gypsum disposal has a significant impact on the economic performance, resulting in a lower IRR than the other designs. Although the salt decomposition process has a high energy demand, it is compensated by the savings obtained in the downstream processing, thus resulting in a similar overall energy demand when compared to conventional reactive distillation. A novel process configuration with ammonium sulfate subproduct shows potential for 3 p.p. higher IRR and up to 30% lower fuel demand in comparison with the conventional process. Therefore, alternative downstream processes could drive low-pH fermentation to outperform the conventional process without any neutralizing agent. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 16/10450-1 - Desenvolvimento do processo de conversão de cana-de-açúcar a levulinato de etila: uma rota para um aditivo de biodiesel viável
• Beneficiário: Jean Felipe Leal Silva
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Mestrado
• Processo FAPESP: 15/20630-4 - Desenvolvimento integrado de biorrefinaria e planta de bioetanol de cana-de-açúcar com emissão zero de CO2: rotas para converter recursos renováveis em bioprodutos e bioeletricidade
• Beneficiário: Rubens Maciel Filho
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Temático