engleski

In-situ vacuum assisted gas stripping recovery system for ethanol removal from a column bioreactor

The conventional ethanol fermentation is a typically product inhibiting process leading to low productivity and yield. This problem can be alleviated by continuous removal of ethanol during the fermentation. In-situ ethanol separation increases the productivity of the fermentation and reduces the amount of water added to the distillation feed stream. In this study, a novel vacuum assisted in-situ gas striping recovery system for ethanol removal from a column bioreactor was tested. With the aim to increase the ethanol production from sugar beet pulp we apply a three step process comprising the hydrolysation, fermentation and in-situ gas stripping with a vacuum assisted recovery system. Following a statistical analysis, the recycling and vacuum ratio had the strongest impact on ethanol production. Using Pareto charts, we showed that the recycling ratio is the most important variable affecting the hydrolysation step, and that the pressure ratio is the most important variable affecting the vacuum stripping step. The herein established mathematical models that describe these hydrolysation/fermentation processes can be further used for the ethanol production optimisation. Additionally, these results can be utilised for the development of an integrated simultaneous fermentation and in-situ gas striping vacuum distillation process. Future trends of this research may also address the scale-up for industrial bioethanol production.

column bioreactor, ethanol, in-situ gas stripping, vacuum

nije evidentirano