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US 5,210,296 AGranted
Recovery of lactate esters and lactic acid from fermentation broth
AssigneeE. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company
InventorsMichael C. M. Cockrem, Pride D. Johnson
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Abstract
The production of high purity lactate ester or lactic acid from a concentrated fermentation broth by continuous acidification in the presence of an alcohol diluent with sequential or simultaneous esterification, distillation off of high purity ester, and, if desired, hydrolysis of the ester to high purity lactic acid.
Claims9
A process for recovering high purity lactate ester from a concentrated fermentation broth comprising the steps of:
- (1) simultaneously mixing a strong acid, an alcohol, and a concentrated fermentation broth which contains mainly basic salts of lactic acid, which react to form a crystal precipitate comprising basic salts of the strong acid and an impure lactate ester of the alcohol;
- (2) removing water from the mixture as a water/alcohol azeotrope which can be accomplished either sequentially or substantially simultaneously with step (1);
- (3) removing the crystal precipitate from the mixture;
- and
- (4) distilling the impure lactate ester to remove impurities, and recovering the high purity ester.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.