Produktion av hållbara och rena kemikalier från avfallsbaserade fettsyror - PureVFA
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan - KTH Skolan för kemi bioteknologi och hälsa |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 425 000 |
| Project duration | December 2022 - May 2023 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | The strategic innovation programme Bioinnovation |
| Call | BioInnovation: Hypothesis testing step 1 - Innovative project with higher risk |
Important results from the project
The overall aim of this project is to establish a novel bio-based production platform through the fermentation, separation, and purification strategy to produce pure and market-ready functional chemicals from organic waste and residual streams. Specific objectives are to: 1) produce and separate a waste-derived VFA mixture into pure VFA flows 2) produce ammonium acetate from separated high-purity acetic acid.
Expected long term effects
The results showed that nanofiltration membranes were efficient in separating waste-derived VFAs into one-type VFA (acetic acid) with relatively high purity (97%). However, recovering acetic acid with high purity resulted in low concentration. Nonetheless, a reverse osmosis membrane could be used to concentrate (3x) the diluted nanofiltration permeate. Moreover, using synthetic acetic acid, it was proven that VFA recovered from low-value residue can be used to produce high-value ammonium acetate.
Approach and implementation
In the study, three nanofiltration membranes were used to recover one-type VFA (acetic acid) from waste-derived fermentation broth. Furthermore, a reverse osmosis membrane was employed to obtain a VFA-rich stream with relatively higher acetic acid concentrations. Ammonium acetate was produced from different concentrations of synthetic acetic acid using ammonia and ammonium salts.