Downstream Process with Countercurrent Chromatography to Recover Bioproducts from Sustainable Feedstocks

Separation of bioproducts produced from renewable feed streams is challenging in downstream process due to complex feed composition and low feed concentration. Current technologies such as ion exchange, adsorption, and liquid-liquid extraction are often faced with large solvent consumption, limited choice of resins, additional pretreatment and regeneration steps, and limited pH operation range. CounterCurrent Chromatography (CCC) is an emerging approach that uses at least two immiscible liquids for both mobile and stationary phase and is a potentially attractive separation method to recover bioproducts from complex process streams. Although there are multiple advantages of CCC for its liquid stationary phase in the context of natural products, there is little attention on employing CCC into downstream process for commodity bioproducts and biochemicals. This talk will discuss the feasibility of incorporating CCC into downstream process to produce high-value products from lignocellulosic feedstocks. Separation of bioproducts from lignocellulosic feedstocks such as alkaline pretreatment liquor and reductive catalytic fraction oils will be presented as demonstrations. The energy and solvent demands of the system correlated with the physicochemical properties of solvent systems, CCC operation mode, and feed composition will be discussed.