Abstract
Kalion has successfully demonstrated a fermentation route using glucose as the feedstock. This game-changing technology allows Kalion to economically produce large-scale quantities of high-purity glucaric acid products. Kalion has also developed a novel downstream processing strategy for isolating and purifying glucaric acid forms, including the free acid, monoammonium glucarate, and monopotassium glucarate. Despite the low solubility of these products, significant water removal is needed prior to crystallization, requiring energy intensive evaporation or reverse osmosis. Here, we work in collaboration with the Separations Consortium to develop novel, low-cost means of water removal in Kalion’s glucarate/glucaric acid purification process. This proposed CRADA project with national labs (ORNL, ANL, and NREL) evaluated various technologies developed by the Separations Consortium as applied to glucaric acid purification, intended to generate a scalable, cost-effective, energy-efficient process. Four approaches were evaluated with mock aqueous solutions of glucaric acid or glucarate, and the results analyzed with respect to separation effectiveness and potential cost savings. The leading technology will then be further developed and tested with actual clarified or non-clarified broth (depending on the approach) obtained from 20L fermentations provided by Kalion, that will contain inorganic ions, byproducts, and residual sugars in addition to the product.