Produktion av hållbara och rena kemikalier från avfallsbaserade fettsyror - PureVFA

Purpose and goal:

The overall aim of this project is to establish a novel bio-based production platform through the fermentation, separation, and purification strategy to produce pure and market-ready functional chemicals from organic waste and residual streams. Specific objectives are to: 1) produce and separate a waste-derived VFA mixture into pure VFA flows

2) produce ammonium acetate from separated high-purity acetic acid. Expected results and effects:

The results showed that nanofiltration membranes were efficient in separating waste-derived VFAs into one-type VFA (acetic acid) with relatively high purity (97%). However, recovering acetic acid with high purity resulted in low concentration. Nonetheless, a reverse osmosis membrane could be used to concentrate (3x) the diluted nanofiltration permeate.

Moreover, using synthetic acetic acid, it was proven that VFA recovered from low-value residue can be used to produce high-value ammonium acetate. Approach and implementation:

In the study, three nanofiltration membranes were used to recover one-type VFA (acetic acid) from waste-derived fermentation broth. Furthermore, a reverse osmosis membrane was employed to obtain a VFA-rich stream with relatively higher acetic acid concentrations. Ammonium acetate was produced from different concentrations of synthetic acetic acid using ammonia and ammonium salts.