Protein Influence during Lactic Acid IEFB

AV SOSA,; J-F HAMEL,; NORA I PEROTTI

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Congreso; 224th American Chemical Society National Meeting; 2002

American Society for Microbiology

O-073. Pilot Plant Lactic Acid Downstream ProcessingA. V. SOSA1, J. Hamel2, N. I. Perotti3;1PROIMI-Biotecnología, Tucumán, ARGENTINA, 2MIT, Cambridge, MA, 3PROIMI-Biotecnología-UNT, Tucumán, ARGENTINA.LA (lactic acid) has traditionally been employed in the food industry as a preservative, pH regulator and taste-enchancing additive. However, thesynthesis of biodegradable polylactic and acrylic acids is a significant growing market area for pure lactic acid. Biodegradable polymers arecurrently used for high cost medical implants; and, in order to expand the markets for large-scale applications, it is necessary to minimize thebioprocess costs and optimize the process conditions. Primary recovery and purification continues to be a significant limiting factor in the overalleconomics. Downstream processing represents the 90% of whole bioproduction, thus, the need of achieving an early recovery and feasibleindustrial technique. Ionic exchange fluidized bed adsorption (IEFBA) it has been used as a primary recovery unit operation to extract fermentationproducts from whole broth without the need for cell removal prior to adsorption avoiding centrifugation and filtration. In previous works,it has been demonstrated that IEFBA gives good results in small scales. In this work IEFBA for LA recovery was performed in the greater pilotplant scale column (20 cm internal diameter and 100 cm height) drained with 5.5 kg of resin. Lactic acid was recovered directly from theunclarified culture broth produced in a pilot plant bioreactor (100L). It was possible to recovered 90% of the lactic acid fed with 95% of purity.Adequate statistical design of experiments and analysis of data were carried out. Population: LA, experimental unit: columns, repetitions: 3 andconfidence level: 95%. In order to make an assessment, the IEFBA has a positive impact on the downstream processing, it is possible to ensurethat is a scaleable technique well suited for large-scale application where biomolecules are recovered directly from unclarified feedstock. Thistechnique is suitable to compete with ongoing industrial lactic acid downstream processing techniques.