Pervaporative butanol removal from PBE fermentation broths for the bioconversion of glycerol by Clostridium pasteurianum
Abstract(#br)Batch-wise butanol removal using vacuum pervaporation (VPV) was investigated to assess its technical feasibility for future integration with a continuous PBE (1,3-propanediol-butanol-ethanol) fermentation process using glycerol as feedstock. Two commercial polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane configurations were characterized using binary model solutions and authentic fermentation broths, while varying feed temperature, butanol concentration and flow rate.