Process for recovering salt during a lignocellulosic conversion process

A process for recovering fertilizer from a still bottoms stream resulting from a lignocellulosic conversion process, said process comprising the steps of:

• (i) removing water from the still bottoms stream to produce a concentrated still bottoms stream;
• (ii) feeding the concentrated still bottoms stream to a crystallizer;
• (iii) forming insoluble solids in the crystallizer by addition of an alcohol;
• (iv) producing a fertilizer from the insoluble solids;
• (v) recovering the alcohol in one or more stages, thereby producing recovered alcohol;
• and
• (vi) recycling the recovered alcohol in the process.

A process for obtaining salt from a still bottoms stream resulting from a lignocellulosic conversion process to produce an alcohol, said process comprising the steps of:

• (i) processing a lignocellulo sic feedstock to produce fermentable sugar;
• (ii) fermenting the sugar with microorganisms to produce a fermentation broth comprising alcohol;
• (iii) recovering the alcohol from the fermentation broth in one or more stages to produce an alcohol-enriched mixture and the still bottoms stream that comprises one or more salts;
• and
• (iv) recovering the one or more salts by precipitation with alcohol.