Efficient recovery of bio-based 1,2,4-butanetriol by using boronic acid anionic reactive extraction

Effective isolation of 1,2,4-butanetriol (BT) from the fermentation broth with low BT concentration was achieved based on anionic reactive extraction with a combined extractant consisted of boronic acid carrier and tri-octylmetylammonium Aliquot (R) 336 (A336) dissolved in the organic phase. The influence of various diluents, pH values, the ratio of phenylbomnic acid derivatives (PBAD) to BT (alpha(PBAD/BT)), and A336 to BT (beta(A336/BT)) on extraction property was investigated in detail. For model BT solutions, satisfactory extraction efficiency of 92% was obtained under the conditions of alpha(PBAD/BT) = 1.5, beta(A336/BT) = 2, with dichlommethane as a diluent. Aqueous hydrochloric acid solutions were employed to strip BT from the organic phase. For actual fermentation broth, the extraction and stripping efficiency under the optimum conditions were 74% and 69%, respectively. Besides, compared with the original fermentation broth, 1,2,4-butanetriol has been concentrated by 4.6 times with the reactive extraction coupled hydrolysis.

Automated summary

Effective isolation of 1,2,4-butanetriol from fermentation broth with low concentrations was achieved through anionic reactive extraction using a boronic acid carrier and A336 dissolved in the organic phase. The study explored the impact of various factors on extraction efficiency and successfully concentrated 1,2,4-butanetriol by 4.6 times compared to the original fermentation broth.