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Acetone‐Butanol‐Ethanol (ABE) Fermentation and Simultaneous Separation in a Trickle Bed Reactor
Author(s) -
Park ChangHo,
Okos Martin R.,
Wankat Phillip C.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
biotechnology progress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.572
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1520-6033
pISSN - 8756-7938
DOI - 10.1021/bp00008a014
Subject(s) - acetone , butanol , chemistry , fermentation , stripping (fiber) , chromatography , ethanol , organic chemistry , materials science , composite material
A new in situ product separation technique using gas stripping was applied to acetone‐butanol‐ethanol (ABE) fermentation in a gas‐phase‐continuous immobilized cell trickle bed reactor. Both numerical and experimental studies showed that glucose conversion could be improved when the inhibitory compounds were stripped by fermentation gas. Solvents were stripped preferentially from the fermentation broth, and butanol removal was as efficient as acetone removal in spite of butanol's high boiling point (117°C) because of butanol's high volatility at fermentation concentrations. Since most of the butanol was removed by gas stripping, organic acids played major roles among inhibitory products. Numerical analysis indicated that improvement of glucose conversion by gas stripping was more pronounced at higher gas flow rates, with stronger inhibition kinetics, and under vacuum conditions. Numerical calculation predicted that glucose concentrations higher than 60 g/L could be converted, but this could not be shown experimentally because of increased degeneration.