1. Institute of Chemical Engineering page 1 Achema 2012 Thermal Process Engineering Project Green Biorefinery Upper Austria Membrane based production of lactic acid and amino acids Judith Ecker Michael Harasek jecker@mail.zserv.tuwien.ac.at, mharasek@mail.zserv.tuwien.ac.at Projekt Green Biorefinery

2. Institute of Chemical Engineering page 2 Achema 2012 Thermal Process Engineering Project Green Biorefinery Realisation of a novel process  Licence based on Austrian Patent AT 000000504206 (2008)  General definition Biorefinery: „A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power and chemicals from biomass. The biorefinery concept is analogous to today‘s petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum“ (http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery.html)http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery.html Fig: Ultrafiltration: housing for ceramic module Fig: Map of Austria

3. Institute of Chemical Engineering page 3 Achema 2012 Thermal Process Engineering Project Green Biorefinery Definition of Green Biorefinery Upper Austria Integrative system for the utilisation of grass silage juice to gain different valuable products such as proteins (solution), amino acids (solution or powder), lactic acid (solution) and energy. Realisation  Intelligent combination of membrane based downstream technologies and ion exchanger  Complex process  Continuous procedure  Water re-using (closed water cycle) Fig: Flowsheet, Lacitc acid concentrated in the NF permeates, Amino Acids enriched in the NF retenates

4. Institute of Chemical Engineering page 4 Achema 2012 Thermal Process Engineering Project Green Biorefinery Process description  Specific Lacitc Acid Production Novel hybrid process Combination of several membrane processes multistage Nanofiltration Reverse Osmosis Electrodiaylis  Specific Amino acids production Ion Exchanger:strong cation exchange resin Fig. : Ion Exchanger column filled with resin  Pretreatment - Sedimentation - Ultrafiltration - Softening

5. Institute of Chemical Engineering page 5 Achema 2012 Thermal Process Engineering Project Green Biorefinery Lactic acid Diluated solution Further concentration (RO) Raw material for - Ethyl-lactate - Acidifier in the nutrition industry Amino acids Production of powder (spray drying) Applications in - food industry - Cosmetics Additives in animal feeding - Methionine (chicken breeding) - Lysin (pig fattening) Multistage Membrane Based Concentration of thin solutions

6. Institute of Chemical Engineering page 6 Achema 2012 Thermal Process Engineering Project Green Biorefinery Sponsors