Alcohol production process
View Patent ↗The invention relates to methods for the production of alcohols by microbial fermentation, particularly microbial fermentation of substrates comprising glycerol and/or acetate, to butanol.
1. A method for producing butanol from a glycerol-containing by-product of triglyceride transesterification, the method comprising:
a) treating the glycerol-containing by-product of triglyceride transesterification to remove at least a portion of contaminants and provide a purified glycerol containing by-product stream;
b) passing the purified glycerol containing by-product stream to a bioreactor containing a culture of one or more micro-organisms and anaerobically fermenting the purified glycerol containing by-product stream to produce butanol; and
c) recovering the butanol product;
where the contaminants comprise fatty acids and methanol.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the total fatty acid content in the purified glycerol containing by-product stream is less than about 1% weight/volume.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the total fatty acid content in the purified glycerol containing by-product stream is less than about 0.5% weight/volume.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the methanol content in the purified glycerol containing by-product stream is less than about 50% w/w glycerol.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the methanol content in the purified glycerol containing by-product stream is less than about 25% w/w glycerol.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the methanol content in the purified glycerol containing by-product stream is less than about 16% w/w glycerol.
7. The method of claim 6 , the methanol content in the purified glycerol containing by-product stream is less than about 3% w/w glycerol.
8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the purified glycerol-containing by-product stream contains less than about 1% weight/volume of total fatty acids and less than about 50% w/w glycerol of methanol.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the purified glycerol-containing by-product stream contains less than about 1% weight/volume of total fatty acids and less than about 25% w/w glycerol of methanol.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the purified glycerol-containing by-product stream contains less than about 1% weight/volume of total fatty acids and less than about 16% w/w glycerol of methanol.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the purified glycerol-containing by-product stream contains less than about 1% weight/volume of total fatty acids and less than about 3% w/w glycerol of methanol.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more micro-organisms is Clostridium pasteurianum.
13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein acetate is added to the bioreactor.