Investigation of gas stripping and pervaporation for improved feasibility of two-stage butanol production process.

Gas stripping and pervaporation are investigated for butanol recovery in a two-stage acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation process. The first stage is operated in a continuous mode and the second stage as a fed-batch. Gas stripping coupled to the second stage and operated intermittently enabled additional glucose feeding in the second stage and up to 59 g/L butanol and 73 g/L total ABE solvents in the condensate. Concentration of 167 g/L butanol and 269 g/L ABE in the permeate was measured in ex situ pervaporation experiments using a PDMS membrane at temperature of 37 °C and pressure of 10mbars. The "operating window" tool is introduced to evaluate the feasibility of the existing ABE fermentations operated as continuous with cell recycle, as two-stages, with biomass immobilization or with integrated product removal. This tool enables the identification of the most favorable process configuration, which is the combination of cell immobilization and integrated product removal.

Improvement in the bioreactor specific productivity by coupling continuous reactor with repeated fed-batch reactor for acetone-butanol-ethanol production.

In comparison to the different fermentation modes for the production of acetone, butanol and ethanol (ABE) researched to date, the continuous fermentation is the most economically favored. Continuous fermentation with two or more reactor cascade is reported to be the most efficient as it results in a more stable solvent production process. In this work, it is shown that a continuous (first-stage) reactor coupled to a repeated fed-batch (second stage) is superior to batch and fed-batch fermentations, including two-stage continuous fermentation. This is due to the efficient catalyst use, reported through the specific product rate and rapid glucose consumption rate. High solvents are produced at 19.4 g(ABE) l⁻¹, with volumetric productivities of 0.92 g(butanol) l⁻¹ h⁻¹ and 1.47 g(ABE) l ⁻¹ h⁻¹. The bioreactor specific productivities of 0.62 and 0.39 g g⁻¹(cdw) h⁻¹ obtained show a high catalyst activity. This new process mode has not been reported before in the development of ABE fermentation and it shows great potential and superiority to the existing fermentation methods.