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Blaschek - Recovery of Butanol From Fermentation Broth by Gas Stripping
Blaschek - Recovery of Butanol From Fermentation Broth by Gas Stripping
Blaschek - Recovery of Butanol From Fermentation Broth by Gas Stripping
www.elsevier.nl/locate/renene
Abstract
This is an overview of the butanol (usually called acetone butanol ethanol, ABE) fermentation in various types of reactor systems and recovery by gas stripping. Gas stripping is a
simple technique which does not require expensive apparatus, does not harm the culture, does
not remove nutrients and reaction intermediates and reduces butanol toxicity (inhibition). As
a result of butanol removal by gas stripping, concentrated sugar solutions can be used to
produce butanol/ABE. Compared to sugar utilization of 30 gl1 in a control batch reactor,
sugar utilization of 199 gl1 has been reported with 69.7 gl1 solvent production. In fed-batch
reactors concentrated sugar solutions (350 gl1) have been used. Additionally, the process of
ABE production results in concentrated product streams containing 9.1120 gl1 butanol/ABE.
In the integrated ABE production and recovery systems, selectivities of 430.5 have been
reported. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Depletion of fossil fuels and fluctuating prices have rekindled an interest in the
development of renewable fuels/energy sources such as butanol. Butanol can be produced from a variety of renewable biomass resources including whey permeate (a
by-product of the dairy industry which contains lactose), corn, wood hydrolysate,
and other monomer sugars such as glucose. The most commonly used microorganism
which converts these sugars into butanol is Clostridium acetobutylicum. However,
the newly developed culture of C. beijerinckii BA101 [1] is more attractive because
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-217-244-6354; fax: +1-217-244-2517.
E-mail address: nqureshi@uiuc.edu (N. Qureshi).
0960-1481/01/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 1 4 8 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 0 8 - 7
558
it can produce a higher concentration of butanol. Typically C. acetobutylicum produces 1016 g l1 butanol, while C. beijerinckii BA101 produces 1825 g l1 butanol. The concentration of butanol in the fermentation broth is limited due to butanol
toxicity to the culture. This results in the utilization of dilute sugar solutions, and
the removal of large quantities of water during the recovery process from the fermentation broth by distillation.
Various alternative techniques to recover butanol from the fermentation broth have
been investigated. These techniques include adsorption, liquidliquid extraction, perstraction, pervaporation, reverse osmosis, and gas stripping [2]. The application of
some of these techniques results in the use of a concentrated sugar solution in the
fermentor and a reduction in butanol inhibition. As a result, production of a larger
amount of butanol than in control batch fermentation has been reported. Gas stripping
is one of the techniques, which can be used to remove liquid fuels such as butanol.
This technique is simple and does not require expensive apparatus. Gas can be
sparged through the fermentor/bioreactor and volatile butanol can be condensed and
recovered from the condenser. The concentration of butanol in the recovered stream
is higher than present in the fermentation broth. Gas stripping also does not harm
the culture
Comparison of an adsorbent resin, a molecular sieve and nitrogen gas stripping
has been carried out to study product removal during a two-stage continuous process.
Nitrogen gas stripping was found to be superior to the other techniques, possibly
because nutrients and reaction intermediates were not removed from the reaction
mixture [3]. Solvent stripping using nitrogen gas has also been shown to be advantageous in a batch process for relief of product inhibition [4]. The objective of the
present work was to review butanol removal by gas stripping and evaluate its advantages.
2. Calculations
The selectivity of butanol is calculated as a=[y/(1y)]/[x/(1x)], where x and y
are weight fractions of butanol in fermentation broth and condensate, respectively.
The rate of removal of butanol/ABE is given as W/Lh, where L is the liquid volume
in the bioreactor/fermentor, and h is the time during which condensate W is collected.
Productivity is defined as grams of butanol/ABE produced per liter reactor volume
per hour, while yield is defined as grams of butanol/ABE produced per gram of
sugar utilized.
35
34
30
0.30
0.10
0.31
0.32a
1.00a
0.18
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
34
0.45
03
34
03
3.2 l l1 min1
2.5 l min1
33.2 l l1 min1
5 to 40
c
10 l l1 min1
18.4 l l1 min1a
0.67 l l1 min1
23.4
60
2.7 l min1
9.513
623
30.5
19.3b
60
2.7 l min1
Calculated value.
Butanol.
Water absorber used.
l min1 liter gas per minute; l l1 min1 liter gas per liter broth per minute.
37
37
6567
35
34
0.30
Model solution
[4]
Fermentation broth
[4]
Reference
Table 1
Removal of ABE by gas stripping from the fermentation broth and model solutions
Comments
560
Fig. 1. Schematic diagrams of butanol/ABE removal from fermentation broth by gas stripping. (A)
Removal from the fermentor; (B) removal using a separate stripper; (C) removal using a separate packedbed stripper.
g l1 h1 at 34C. The rate of recycle of N2 gas was 2.7 l min1 and the condensation
temperature was 60C. Selectivity of butanol was found to be 19.3. This technique
was then applied to a fermentor to remove ABE while solvents were produced from
whey permeate. The fermentation temperature, rate of gas recycle and condensation
temperature were the same as above. In this fermentation-recovery experiment the
561
0.32
0.26
0.37
0.07
0.07
0.17e
[7]
[8]
[9]
Calculated value.
Low values due to loss of solvents.
Dilution rate of 1.00 h1.
Dilution rate of 1.37 h1.
Batch system.
0.36
4.80c
[6]
[11]
0.36
0.07
[5]
0.39
0.22
0.34
1.00
0.26
0.32
22.6a
31.0
37.0
5.12d
0.17
0.31
12.5
19.4
29.0
0.33
0.34
0.38
0.35
126.0
182.5
199.0
97.5a
182.5
0.25b
0.40
60.0
Sugar
utilization (g
l1)
0.27b
ABE yield,
Yp/s (g g1)
Productivity
(g l1 h1)
Sugar
utilization (g
l1)
Productivity
(g l1 h1)
ABE yield,
Yp/s (g g1)
[4]
Reference
Table 2
Removal of ABE from fermentation broth by gas stripping: a comparison of different parameters
9.1
26.7
20120
53.7
75.9
Recovered
Comments
ABE
concentration
(g l1)a
562
N. Qureshi, H.P. Blaschek / Renewable Energy 22 (2001) 557564
563
ABE of 0.32 g l1 h1 was achieved with a selectivity of 9.513 (Table 1). A comparison of reactor productivity, yield and lactose utilization is given in Table 2.
Interestingly, the culture utilized all of the 199 g l1 lactose initially present. This
is several times higher than that utilized by the culture in the batch reactor, which
is usually about 30 g l1. The reader is advised to note that in a batch reactor the
culture produces a maximum of 1020 g l1 total solvents (ABE) of which butanol
is usually 713 g l1 with a yield of 0.290.30 g solvents/g substrate. This integrated
system produced 69.7 g l1 total ABE.
Groot et al. [9] studied production of ABE in a continuous reactor and recovery
by gas stripping. These authors used a separate packed-bed stripper. The broth was
sprayed on top of the column and withdrawn at the bottom. Oxygen free nitrogen
was used as a strip gas in a closed circuit. The gas was introduced at the bottom of
the column by a compressor, and the alcohol/water vapors were condensed in a
condenser at 5C and a cold trap at 40C. In their experiments the rate of removal
of ABE was 1.00 g l1 h1 as compared to 0.300.45 g l1 h1 reported by various
authors (Table 1). The selectivity of ABE was 4, which is lower than that reported
by other authors. The possible reason for the low selectivity is that a large amount
of water was removed due to large contact area between gas and liquid. These authors
used a very high gas recycle rate (10 l l1 min1). This type of gas stripper may,
possibly, get clogged due to excessive cell growth.
Mollah and Stuckey [11] produced ABE in a fluidized bed reactor of C. acetobutylicum and removed solvents by gas stripping. Details of selectivity were not presented,
however, a rate of removal of ABE of 0.18 g l1 h1 was achieved. These authors
used a mixture of gases (CO2, H2, and N2) to fluidize immobilized cell particles in
the reactor and remove solvents from the fermentation broth.
From the results reported by various authors it is clear that the application of
gas stripping resulted in reduced butanol inhibition, thereby improving total solvent
productivity and yield (Table 2). Improved yield has been achieved because gas
stripping does not remove acids [3] which are converted to solvents [6]. Sugar utilization as high as 199 g l1 has been reported as compared to about 30 g l1 in nonintegrated systems. In addition, concentrated sugar solutions (350 g l1 whey
permeate) have been used thus reducing the volume of the process streams in the
fed batch reactors. A higher ABE concentration (9.1120 g l1) in the recovered
stream was achieved. In conclusion, gas stripping can be performed within the fermentor and it does not harm the culture. Gas stripping does not remove nutrients
and reaction intermediates, it reduces butanol toxicity and concentrated sugar solutions can be used.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by an Illinois Corn Marketing Board (ICMB) grant.
564
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