Sunday, May 4, 2008
4-10

Succinic Acid Production from Forest Based Succinic Acid Production from Forest Based  Raw Materials

David Hodge, Christian Andersson, Jonas Helmerius, Jonas Vinblad von Walter, Ulrika Rova, and Kris Berglund. Biochemical and Chemical Process Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, 971 87, Sweden

Lignocellulosic biomass and particularly hemicellulose from the forest products industry represents a large reservoir of sugars with the potential to be converted to higher value products through bioprocessing. This presentation will cover several projects regarding the fractionation and conversion of lignocellulose to succinic acid, a potentially important platform molecule in the synthesis of a number of commodity and specialty chemicals. The first of these investigates the feasibility of integrating a hardwood hemicellulose sugar extraction step into a Kraft pulping process with the intention of utilizing the hemicellulose as a fermentation feedstock. The requirements on processing configurations for hemicellulose extraction and recovery are compared, and a number of experimental parameters affecting the extraction (alkali, temperature, time) are investigated. Pulp quality is an important property and hemicellulose extraction can result in negatively affect the strength of the paper, which is also investigated. The second portion of the work deals with the fermentation requirements for microbial conversion of dilute acid hydrolyzed softwood to succinic acid. In particular, activated carbon and overliming detoxifications were tested for the ability to remove fermentation inhibitors and improve the fermentability of the hydrolyzates.

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