[Research progress in salting-out extraction of bio-based chemicals]

Bio-refinery using cheap biomass focuses mainly on strain improvement and fermentation strategies whereas less effort is made on down-stream processing. Using cheap biomass more impurities are introduced into the fermentation broths than mono-sugar substrate, thus down-stream processing for bio-based chemicals becomes the key problem in industrial production. The technique called salting-out extraction (SOE) was introduced in this review, which is used to separate target products from fermentation broth on the basis of partition difference of chemicals in two phases formed by mixing salts and organic solvents (or amphipathic chemicals) with broth at suitable ratios. The effect of solvents and salts on the formation of two aqueous phases, especially short chain alcohols and inorganic salts, and the application of SOE in recovery of bio-based chemicals, such as lactic acid, 1,3-propanediol, 2,3-butanediol and acetoin were summarized. The bio-chemicals were efficiently recovered from fermentation broth, and most of the impurities (cells and proteins) were removed in the same step. This technique is promising in the separation of bio-based chemicals, especially the recovery of hydrophilic molecules with low molecular weights.