Selectivity between lactic acid and glucose during recovery of lactic acid with basic extractants and polymeric sorbents

During recovery of product carboxylic acids from fermentation broths, it is important to maximize the selectivity for the desired acid, as opposed to substrate sugars. In this work uptakes of glucose and competitive uptakes of lactic acid and glucose have been measured for the extractant Alamine 336 in various diluents and three commercially available basic solid polymeric sorbents. The results show that swelling is the main factor governing the selectivity between lactic acid and glucose for the polymeric sorbents. Because of a high uptake capacity and relatively low swelling, Dowex MWA-1 gives a higher selectivity in the pH 5-6 range than do Amberlite IRA-35 and Reillex 425. Extraction with Alamine 336 provides a much higher selectivity, but a lower capacity, than the polymeric sorbents. The extent of water coextraction depends strongly on the diluent used, and larger amounts of water coextracted correspond to larger uptakes of glucose.