Abstract
The productivity of ethanol fermentation processes, predominantly based on batch operation in the U.S. fuel ethanol industry, could be improved by adoption of continuous processing technology. In this study, a conventional yeast fermentation was coupled to a flat-plate membrane pervaporation unit to recover continuously an enriched ethanol stream from the fermentation broth. The process employed a concentrated dextrose feed stream controlled by the flow rate of permeate from the pervaporation unit via liquid-level control in the fermentor. The pervaporation module contained 0.1 m2 commercially available polydimethylsiloxane membrane and consistently produced a permeate of 20%–23% (w/w) ethanol while maintaining a level of 4%–6% ethanol in a stirred-tank fermentor. The system exhibited excellent operational stability. During continuous operation with cell densities of 15–23 g/l, ethanol productivities of 4.9–7.8 gl−1 h−1 were achieved utilizing feed streams of 269–619 g/l glucose. Pervaporation flux and ethanol selectivities were 0.31–0.79 lm−2 h−1 and 1.8–6.5 respectively.
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O'Brien, D.J., Craig, J.C. Ethanol production in a continuous fermentation/membrane pervaporation system. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 44, 699–704 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00178605
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00178605