Lactic acid recovery from a model of Thermotoga neapolitana fermentation broth using ion exchange resins in batch and fixed-bed reactors

This study focused on the integration of lactic acid adsorption and desorption onto commercially
available resins in batch reactors with consequent scale-up in fixed-bed reactors. Amberlite® IRA-
900, IRA-400, IRA-96 and IRA-67 were used as adsorbents for lactic acid recovery from solutions
that mimic the fermentation broth of Thermotoga neapolitana. The best resins were further tested
in adsorption–desorption batch experiments, over 13 cycles, with IRA-67 showing an average
removal efficiency of 97%. IRA-67 was tested in fixed-bed reactor experiments and an average
desorption efficiency of 68% was achieved using three bed volumes of 0.5 M NaOH as the
desorbing agent.