Sustainable Process Design of Propionic Acid Production from Glycerol: A Comparative Study of Bio-Based and Petroleum-Based Technologies

Given the production increase of biodiesel, wise management via the fermentation of glycerol into platform chemicals such as propionic acid could be undertaken to avoid the oversupply of glycerol. Although the major bottleneck faced by fermentation was the attainment of dilute propionic acid, the reactive extraction technique was proven experimentally for its effective recovery of dilute acid. Therefore, to promote the commercial production of propionic acid via fermentation, an optimal process design and process evaluations in terms of economics, energy requirement, and CO2 equivalent emissions are required, which could be thoroughly assessed using process simulation. According to the simulated results, the bio-based production is economically attractive-the best production scenario provides an NPV of 118 million USD, a % IRR of 18.2%, and a payout period of 7.12 years. Furthermore, the bio-based production results in substantially less CO2 emissions with a 34% reduction when compared to the petroleum-based production. Thus, the shift of propionic acid production from petroleum-based to bio-based could be promoted given the effectiveness of the acid-recovery technique and less CO2 emissions as demonstrated in this study.

Automated summary

The wise management of biodiesel production can be achieved through fermentation of glycerol into platform chemicals like propionic acid. Reactive extraction technique has been experimentally proven effective in recovering dilute acid, which removes the major bottleneck faced by fermentation. Process simulation enables a thorough assessment of optimal process design and evaluation in terms of economics, energy requirement, and CO2 emissions. The simulation results demonstrate that bio-based production of propionic acid is economically attractive and leads to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions compared to petroleum-based production.