Process for the recovery of organic acids from aqueous solutions

Abstract

A process for recovering a desired organic acid from a solution includes the steps of: providing an aqueous solution including at least one desired organic acid or its acid anion; adjusting the proton concentration in the aqueous solution to a desired level, with the desired proton concentration being selected, at least in part, by the amount of available protons needed to associate with the acid anions of the desired organic acid(s) to be recovered and/or acid anions that are weaker than the desired organic acids; and recovering at least a portion of the at least one desired organic acid from the aqueous phase. The desired proton concentration can be based on the amount of available protons being greater than, less than or substantially equal, to the amount of protons needed to associate with the anion of the desired organic acid(s) and acid anions that are weaker than the desired organic acid(s). Specific examples of suitable organic acids include, but are not limited to, ascorbic, succinic, tartaric, glyconic, gulonic, citric, lactic, hialic, maleic, acetic, formic, gluconic pyruvic, propionic, butyric, itaconic acids and mixtures thereof. One embodiment of the present invention relates to the recovery of 2-keto-L-gulonic acid (KLG) from aqueous solutions such as fermentation baths.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.