Myriant Technologies, LLC has developed a sustainable, fermentation process for the commercial production of succinic acid from renewable feedstocks. The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Myriant Technologies a $50 million grant for the construction of the world's largest bio-based succinic acid plant in Lake Providence, Louisiana. This plant will utilize both local grain sorghum and carbon dioxide as feedstocks. To move from the laboratory to production and be cost competitive with petroleum based processes, considerable process development was necessary, including development of lower cost raw materials, minimal medium, low cell density and anaerobic fermentation conditions. Careful regulation of the sugar feed rate to fermentation is required to reduce by-products and maximize yield. In the commercial plant, sorghum grain will be converted to flour, digested, and fed as syrup to produce at least 30 million pounds of succinic acid per year. Sorghum hydrolysis, fermentation and downstream separation and purification of succinic acid have been piloted at the 20,000 liter scale since late 2009 and the basic data from this pilot plant have been used to design the commercial, DOE funded succinic acid plant.
Acknowledgement: This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Number DE-EE0002878/001 and the disclaimer language prescribed in the award is incorporated herein in its entirety.
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