Analysis of an extractive fermentation process for ethanol production using a rigorous model and a short-cut method

Extractive fermentation is based on the removal of inhibitory compounds from the culture broth by an extractive agent allowing the process intensification. In this work, a rigorous approach for the description of extractive fermentation for ethanol production was utilized. With this aim, fermentation kinetics models were coupled with models describing liquid-liquid equilibrium in order to simulate the continuous culture. A shortcut method based on the principles of thermodynamic-topological analysis is proposed for studying the behaviour of the process. The feasibility of different sets of operating parameters was examined. Using the mentioned tools, a general strategy of optimization was formulated.