Recovery of 3-hydroxypropionic acid
AssigneeCargill, Incorporated
InventorsTimothy Walter Abraham, Erik Allen, John J. Hahn, Paraskevas Tsobanakis, Eric Christopher Bohnert, Christopher Lawrence Frank
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for recovering a composition enriched in 3-hydroxypropionic acid from a fermentation broth comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid and/or salts thereof comprises the steps of: (a) providing the fermentation broth having a pH of from about 2 to about 8 comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid and/or salts thereof (b) acidifying the fermentation broth; (c) reducing the total sulfate ion and phosphate ion (d) distilling the resulting reduced ion aqueous solution and (e) recovering the product.
Claims7
A method for recovering a composition enriched in 3-hydroxypropionic acid from a fermentation broth comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid and/or salts thereof, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing the fermentation broth comprising from about 60 to about 150 grams of 3-hydroxypropionic acid equivalents per liter of broth and having a pH of from about 2 to about 5 comprising:
- 3-hydroxypropionic acid and/or salts thereof, and
- a total sulfate ion and phosphate ion concentration;
- (b) acidifying the fermentation broth to lower the pH to from about 1 to about 3 to form an aqueous solution comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid;
- (c) reducing the total sulfate ion and phosphate ion concentration of the aqueous solution to produce a reduced ion aqueous solution comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid;
- (d) distilling the reduced ion aqueous solution at a pH of from about 1 to about 3 by applying vacuum and heat to the reduced ion aqueous solution to form an aqueous distillation product comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid;
- and
- (e) recovering the aqueous distillation product comprising 3-hydroxypropionic acid at a concentration of at least twenty percent by weight of the aqueous distillation product and wherein the aqueous distillation product comprises less than five parts by weight acrylic acid per one hundred parts by weight 3-hydroxypropionic acid present.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.